(copy of message I sent to a reef fish mailing list I’m on)
All,
Last night I had the sad task of retrieving my Scooter Blenny from the back of the tank and disposing of him. This is the first fish I’ve lost, but what’s sadder is the fact that I killed him – several different ways. Thought maybe I’d process here, maybe someone can learn something along with me. Long story disclaimer.
I have two tanks – both 12 gallon nanocube reef with lots of live rock, and a deep live sand bed, and very frequent water changes (about 15% per week), consistently great water readings, slightly salty on Catalina water and a crummy plastic hygrometer, and a little warm at 80-81 but that’s as cool as my house will get.
Before getting the tanks, I read a lot online and in books. Decided I was up for the challenge of a small tank; I enjoy the maintenance, and don’t really want to overpopulate. Someday I’ll move up to a 50 or so when I’m in a place I own, hopefully.
I ended up with two tanks, because I had been waiting to buy one on Craigslist, and not finding one, then finally shelled out for a new one, and the next day found an identical one on CL for a great price.
Tank 1, the ‘old’ tank, has 1 medium-sized maroon clown that came with the tank, a medium (around baseball-sized when filled out) quadricolor anemone, a cleaner shrimp, one large snail, small snails and hermits, some mushrooms and more algae than I’d like, plus a couple of small Aiptasia I haven’t bothered to attack yet.
Tank 2, the ‘new’ tank, has even more live rock, green star polyps, mushrooms, hermits, snails, and had been stable for about two months. So I was at the cheaper, closer LFS (I usually go to another one that’s farther away but a lot better), and they had a tank of scooter blennies – actual ones, I believe, occellated dragonet. First mistake – buy on impulse when I don’t have my book/research, and instead rely on their advice. So I got a small one (most likely her), and she was happy in the tank for about a month. I know I’ve got copepods, I can see them at night when I turn out the lights, so I figured Scooter was well-fed; he was active and looked filled-out. I added a very small blue devil damsel; they pretty much ignored each other.
The anemone has been the weirdest critter. I started with it in the ‘new’ tank, with no tankmates, and it would never settle down – kept getting into the center of the tank and spinning; would settle for a day or two then spin again. So I moved it into the old tank with the maroon clown, and they both seemed to be quite happy with the arrangement; the anemone found a place to stay and the clown hosted it well. They’d been together for about three months.
Then a few weeks ago, a day after a weekly water change, I noticed I now had two anemones. At some point it had split. Seemed like they would be crowded in the tank together, and the clown was confused as to which was ‘home’. So I looked on the net and in my books, and couldn’t find any contraindications for damsels or scooters and anemones; so I transferred one to their tank. Everyone seemed fine; the anemone seemed like it was finding places it liked and sticking, the fish ignored it.
Then the other night before bed, I noticed I couldn’t find Scooter. Must be under the rocks somewhere, I thought. But the next morning I still couldn’t find it. Finally I shined a flashlight down into one of the holes in the rock, and it was there – looking emaciated and black-eyed and still moving but definitely not happy. The anemone didn’t look particularly guilty, but I went online and looked again and sure enough – blennies are often stung and sometimes may be eaten by anemones.
I removed the Anem back to the other tank – carefully, because I’m sure it’s getting stressed too – hoping to save Scooter. By the way, another sign that I should have known the fish store was clueless – they sold him to me for $24 as a ‘red scooter blenny’ – he was brownish-red – but he certainly didn’t match pictures of a red scooter; he looked exactly like an ocellated dragonet that should have cost $5.99. Anyway, he died that night.
I guess I’m getting over my mourning because I’m trying to figure out what I ought to do next. Move the stinger back to the new tank? I know I won’t be getting another scooter – I read now that they should have at least 30 gallons and lots of live rock, per fish, so they get enough copepods (they really prefer to eat live caught food), unless I want to go into the hobby of breeding tiny shrimps – no thanks. Otherwise the only inhabitant is the small damsel. Probably enough for the tank, but I know my levels are good and another small fish seems doable. I’m going to think about it and read about it for a while, though.
Anyhow, I’d been meaning to intro and mention the Anemone split.
Pictures, including way too many of clownfish and anemone, at http://www.obtainium.org/gallery/fishtank