Tommy Gunnz
Fish Crazy
Hello everyone,
I wanted to start this thread because I am having a debate with my wife about how some 'mysterious' deaths of 3 green chromis and 2 clownfish. Let me give you some background first though....
I have a 90 gallon bowfront tank with over 110 pounds of very well cured live rock. The tank has been up and running for well over four months and has supported all of my fish, minus the five above, with no problems. When I started stocking my tank, my wife found a great deal on a porcupine puffer and asked to buy it as a birthday present for herself. I said fine and asked as much as I could about this particular fish to the LFS owner and local SW expert. I went home, did the research and found that this would be an ok fish for my planned FOWLR tank. The puffer was raised on live feeder fish, however I was able to ween it off live foods an onto frozen krill and silversides.
Later I decided to go with a 'preditor' type tank and bought a V. Lionfish and a snowflake moray eel. That was all I wanted and was happy with this stocking. I bought no more fish for nearly two months, however I could not for the life of me get the lionfish to eat frozen foods and continued to feed it live feeder guppies and rosy reds about once a week (trying to 'starve' it into eating frozen foods.) I was diligent about keeping the puffer from these live fish, but of course he did get one or two here and there.
Because of this live food issue, I decided to trade in my lionfish and snowflake eel and move towards a more colorful, omnivore type stocking. My current 'goal' is to stock my tank with the puffer, a bicolor angelfish (which I have now), one more larger type fish (e.g. yellow tang), and a school of small fish such as green chromis as well as two clown fish.
So, in my lionfish/snowflake eel trade, I picked up the bicolored angel and five green chromis. Every day, for the next three days, one green chromis was found dead and seeminly 'chewed' to death. I went back to the LFS after double checking as many SW fish compatability charts that I could to ask if this could be the puffer fish's handy work and was told no and absolutely not from the puffer fish. So, knowing that I also have two larger hermit crabs and one small hermit crab, I thought maybe I am jumping to conclusions and the fish died from something else and was 'chewed' up by a crab. So I tested and tested my water and my plumbing and everything I could think of that would attribute to the death of these fish and found nothing. Trust me, I am very thorough and understand exactly what I am looking for as it pertains to water quality problems and the like.
I went back to the LFS and said my tank was nearly perfect (calcium is a little low) and asked if it wasnt the puffer fish, then why would only one fish die per night and not all of them at one time. Adding to this, I also checked on the tank every hour from 9 p.m. to midnight and the fish were all fine when I went to bed. The LFS guy was so sure that it wasnt the puffer that he GAVE me, for free, 2 clownfish to see if this problem was only related to green chromis. The clownfish made it for one night, and in the morning I felt really stupid for assuming this was the puffer. However, this morning, one clownfish was dead in a corner of the tank and the other one is just gone, vanished. It is really weird to me when I noticed that this clownfish was not at all beat up or chewed on looking or otherwise showing obvious reasons for death.
So, I dont know what to think any more. I still have two damsel fish that are doing great. The puffer and angel fish are also great. Water is great, inverts are great, and I am stumped...
What would you think about this situation and what courses of action do you think I should take? Should I simply trade in the puffer and go with a more trustworthy fish or should I risk stressing him out by putting him in my Q-tank for a couple of days and put him back to see what happens? Also, the puffer was raised in a tank with both clownfish and green chromis as well as other smaller fish like a grammas and cardinalfish. The puffer is not big at all, perhaps 3 to 4 inches long. Every compatability chart I have seen states that this puffer is good with almost all fish with the exception of pseudochromis (which a green chromis is not a pseudochromis to my understanding but actually a damselfish). Is this wrong or what could be the source of this problem?
ANY suggestions, ideas, or info would really help me out a lot here. I am at odds with my wife as to the cause of these deaths and she does not want to blame "her puffer" and I feel that this tank is going to be wasted on one puffer fish that I cannot even trust with corals or anything else interesting.
I wanted to start this thread because I am having a debate with my wife about how some 'mysterious' deaths of 3 green chromis and 2 clownfish. Let me give you some background first though....
I have a 90 gallon bowfront tank with over 110 pounds of very well cured live rock. The tank has been up and running for well over four months and has supported all of my fish, minus the five above, with no problems. When I started stocking my tank, my wife found a great deal on a porcupine puffer and asked to buy it as a birthday present for herself. I said fine and asked as much as I could about this particular fish to the LFS owner and local SW expert. I went home, did the research and found that this would be an ok fish for my planned FOWLR tank. The puffer was raised on live feeder fish, however I was able to ween it off live foods an onto frozen krill and silversides.
Later I decided to go with a 'preditor' type tank and bought a V. Lionfish and a snowflake moray eel. That was all I wanted and was happy with this stocking. I bought no more fish for nearly two months, however I could not for the life of me get the lionfish to eat frozen foods and continued to feed it live feeder guppies and rosy reds about once a week (trying to 'starve' it into eating frozen foods.) I was diligent about keeping the puffer from these live fish, but of course he did get one or two here and there.
Because of this live food issue, I decided to trade in my lionfish and snowflake eel and move towards a more colorful, omnivore type stocking. My current 'goal' is to stock my tank with the puffer, a bicolor angelfish (which I have now), one more larger type fish (e.g. yellow tang), and a school of small fish such as green chromis as well as two clown fish.
So, in my lionfish/snowflake eel trade, I picked up the bicolored angel and five green chromis. Every day, for the next three days, one green chromis was found dead and seeminly 'chewed' to death. I went back to the LFS after double checking as many SW fish compatability charts that I could to ask if this could be the puffer fish's handy work and was told no and absolutely not from the puffer fish. So, knowing that I also have two larger hermit crabs and one small hermit crab, I thought maybe I am jumping to conclusions and the fish died from something else and was 'chewed' up by a crab. So I tested and tested my water and my plumbing and everything I could think of that would attribute to the death of these fish and found nothing. Trust me, I am very thorough and understand exactly what I am looking for as it pertains to water quality problems and the like.
I went back to the LFS and said my tank was nearly perfect (calcium is a little low) and asked if it wasnt the puffer fish, then why would only one fish die per night and not all of them at one time. Adding to this, I also checked on the tank every hour from 9 p.m. to midnight and the fish were all fine when I went to bed. The LFS guy was so sure that it wasnt the puffer that he GAVE me, for free, 2 clownfish to see if this problem was only related to green chromis. The clownfish made it for one night, and in the morning I felt really stupid for assuming this was the puffer. However, this morning, one clownfish was dead in a corner of the tank and the other one is just gone, vanished. It is really weird to me when I noticed that this clownfish was not at all beat up or chewed on looking or otherwise showing obvious reasons for death.
So, I dont know what to think any more. I still have two damsel fish that are doing great. The puffer and angel fish are also great. Water is great, inverts are great, and I am stumped...
What would you think about this situation and what courses of action do you think I should take? Should I simply trade in the puffer and go with a more trustworthy fish or should I risk stressing him out by putting him in my Q-tank for a couple of days and put him back to see what happens? Also, the puffer was raised in a tank with both clownfish and green chromis as well as other smaller fish like a grammas and cardinalfish. The puffer is not big at all, perhaps 3 to 4 inches long. Every compatability chart I have seen states that this puffer is good with almost all fish with the exception of pseudochromis (which a green chromis is not a pseudochromis to my understanding but actually a damselfish). Is this wrong or what could be the source of this problem?
ANY suggestions, ideas, or info would really help me out a lot here. I am at odds with my wife as to the cause of these deaths and she does not want to blame "her puffer" and I feel that this tank is going to be wasted on one puffer fish that I cannot even trust with corals or anything else interesting.
