First Boxing Day Find. More To Come.

[new2reefing]

Was an inpusle buy, and qt is currently in use so now i play the fingers crossed game that i didnt introduce anything bad.
Meet Drogon the ruby dragonette.

 

[nathan]

Very nice!

 

[SpongeAl]

Very cool, best of luck with the dice.

 

[derrick orosz]

Beauty

 

[new2reefing]

So I'm sad to say that Drogo did not make it. Found my cleaner shrimp cleaning him this morning, until he flipped him over and started going at him. I scared him off and scooped up the dragonet with my net, and sure enough he was dead.
RIP Drogo.
My first fish loss on this tank

Now I'm wondering if it was the cleaner shrimp who killed him..... wouldn't be the first time, as I'm pretty sure he killed my blood shrimp, or just stress and malnutrition from transportation.

 

[Kjmsmith]

I'm so sorry for the loss, these are beautiful fish. How old is your set up? If this was an impulse buy I'm not sure if you did the research on the dragonfish. These fish need to be in a well established tank (>2 years) with a large supply of pods for it to eat. Unless it was raised to eat frozen or pellets, without any food supply in the tank these fish will starve quickly.
Not meaning to be "preachy" or lay blame on the impulse decision to purchase one but if you are truly looking for a cause of to death this would be the first place to start. If you had the right environment then I would start thinking of other factors.
Again, sorry for the loss, I can relate.....

 

[unibob]

I'm so sorry for the loss, these are beautiful fish. How old is your set up? If this was an impulse buy I'm not sure if you did the research on the dragonfish. These fish need to be in a well established tank (>2 years) with a large supply of pods for it to eat. Unless it was raised to eat frozen or pellets, without any food supply in the tank these fish will starve quickly.
Not meaning to be "preachy" or lay blame on the impulse decision to purchase one but if you are truly looking for a cause of to death this would be the first place to start. If you had the right environment then I would start thinking of other factors.
Again, sorry for the loss, I can relate.....

Tough fish to keep, and usually comes with pinched belly from stores in the first place.

 

[new2reefing]

Hey,
Thanks all.
Impulse buy for me never means lack of knowledge. For me I considered it impulse since I already had a fish in QT.
I actually have a binder with the liveaquaria page for every coral/invert/fish I have or plan to buy. They didn't even have one for the ruby dragonet yet so I made my own back in October.
My tank is 11 months old, but I have a 20 gallon gravity fed fuge stocked with 4 bottles of various pods 6ish months ago when I was planning to buy a green mandarin. I decided to hold off of getting one since the LFS's all had sickly ones.
My bet is either pinched belly or didn't take well to the FW dip I gave him. He was eating lots everytime I checked on him, so I doubt very much it was that.
Still sad, may never know what happened. I do blame myself as I bought it from the chain store I swore I would never buy Marine fish from.... but he was soooo pretty and 25% off...

 

[nathan]

Hey,
Thanks all.
Impulse buy for me never means lack of knowledge. For me I considered it impulse since I already had a fish in QT.
I actually have a binder with the liveaquaria page for every coral/invert/fish I have or plan to buy. They didn't even have one for the ruby dragonet yet so I made my own back in October.
My tank is 11 months old, but I have a 20 gallon gravity fed fuge stocked with 4 bottles of various pods 6ish months ago when I was planning to buy a green mandarin. I decided to hold off of getting one since the LFS's all had sickly ones.
My bet is either pinched belly or didn't take well to the FW dip I gave him. He was eating lots everytime I checked on him, so I doubt very much it was that.
Still sad, may never know what happened. I do blame myself as I bought it from the chain store I swore I would never buy Marine fish from.... but he was soooo pretty and 25% off...

Sorry to hear of your loss.

 

[Kjmsmith]

Hey,
Thanks all.
Impulse buy for me never means lack of knowledge. For me I considered it impulse since I already had a fish in QT.
I actually have a binder with the liveaquaria page for every coral/invert/fish I have or plan to buy. They didn't even have one for the ruby dragonet yet so I made my own back in October.
My tank is 11 months old, but I have a 20 gallon gravity fed fuge stocked with 4 bottles of various pods 6ish months ago when I was planning to buy a green mandarin. I decided to hold off of getting one since the LFS's all had sickly ones.
My bet is either pinched belly or didn't take well to the FW dip I gave him. He was eating lots everytime I checked on him, so I doubt very much it was that.
Still sad, may never know what happened. I do blame myself as I bought it from the chain store I swore I would never buy Marine fish from.... but he was soooo pretty and 25% off...

Thank you for providing more details and I'm sorry if I came off sounding accusatory. It appears that you had a suitable environment and did more than the minimum amount of homework before the purchase - very impressive! Again, sorry for your loss.....

 

[new2reefing]

No worries. In all honesty reminding people to do their research is a must IMO, and was an extremely valid assumtion given the hard to keep nature of the fish. I will try a dragonet again in the future, once ive seen it in store and eating for a while. I've only twice bought fish when they first arrived at the lfs. My carpenter is the other one and so far so good in QT.
In case anyone else is considering one, use a store you trust, watch it for as long as you can (put off buying for a few days where possible, few stores will hold for that long unless your well known there) till you know the are healthy and eating. As others know they often dont ship well due to their diet. In any case they are stunning fish that deserve the time.....dam u boxing day LOL

 

[AdInfinitum]

FW dips are only of use in certain circumstances and are very hard on fish. Unless you are trying to provide instant relief for a fish that is heavily infested with parasites they really should be avoided. Not saying that had any impact on this outcome but going forward....

 

[AdInfinitum]

Double post???

 

[new2reefing]

Good to know. From what i read as long as ph and temp match it isnt too hard on the fish, but various athorities differ on their opinion. Used on my firefish, and bangai when i thought they had ich (turned out it was dust on the firefishes) with no ill effect. But i do agree IMO its not something that should be done as just part of every fish addition.
I DO use on the LR or plug portion of any frag i buy, but not on the coral itself, to dislodge any hitchickers.
Again I Did read that its much more stressfull on certain fish, so probably should not be used unless needed....Only did it this time due to my plan to not QT. And because of the certain store i purchased from and my lack of trust for their livestock.
My hope is this was not part of the reason why Drogo didnt make it, as i would hope the effects of a FW dip would show day 1 or 2, and starvation week 2 or 3. The 4-5 day part makes me think there was an unknown underlined cause.