STARVING Citron Goby!!!

[seahorse]

HELP!!! Citron goby won't eat and is realy skinny! I tried soking food in garlic but it didn't work!!!
HELP!!!

[Instar]

They are similar to a mandarin: Copepods, larval shrimp from spawns in the tank if any, live newly hatched baby brine and perhaps frozen cyclopeze if there is enough current. Forget the garlic, most of the time those extracts are way too strong for "soaking" foods in and some of the more finicky fish will not touch a garlic soaked food. Citrons live in swiftly moving waters so a fast current drifting cyclopeze may tempt it along with live baby brine. Eventually they can learn to eat some other frozen foods. Some of the yellow species need live coral polyps as a main staple in their diet and will not do well if they are starving by the time you get them without live stoney corals to feed on their polyps. Fish that are emaciated with colapsed guts may not eat again, so take heart here. I don't want to be negative to you but, it is possible that it's too late now. The article that follows talks about how to handle them in the aquarium and may help you get one to eat. But, from your description, it sounds like the one you have was not doing well from the start?

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-10/hcs3/index.php

[JeremyGlen]

I had 2 yellow clown gobies that came that same way. The best way I have found to get them to eat is sweetwater zooplankton. They get used to eating it and then you can get them bumped up to small mysis after their stomachs get back to normal. I had one that was being picked on for like 3 weeks and never ate and it still lived once I got it in its own tank and eating the zooplankton.

[caferacermike]

I got a finicky mandarin to start eating frozen mysis by first offering frozen rotifers. Tiny stuff. It seemed to go after it, it's what I put in the tank for my corals. After a few weeks of eating it it switched over to the mysis I feed the fish in the tank.

[seahorse]

Ok, I'm going to by some cyclopezee, frozen rotifers, and Live brine?
Are the ones they sell at my LFS "newly hatched" or do I have to hatch my own to get them small enogh that he would eat them? I have clown in my tank. I just read this will stress the fish so he won't eat. What should I do? I don't have an extra tank. what exactly is sweetwater zooplanctin?

[seahorse]

:cry Frozen cyclopeze didn't work! He swallows frozen myssis but looks like he is choking & then spits it out!

[seahorse]

Oops, acsidently double posted

[JeremyGlen]

Sweetwater is a brand of zooplankton. It is not frozen and should be in the same section as the dried algae and freeze-dried brine and stuff. I used to get it at Petco. It has many different sizes of plankton and your clown will like it too.

[Instar]

If the mysis doesn't taste just right or is too big, try the frozen white mosquito larva by San Francisco Bay. That's is in a cube pack.

Keep feeding him the mysis, even if it loooks like he is choking on it. They have a way of getting some nourishment out if it by shucking it or partially shucking it and then spitting out the shell.

[caferacermike]

A friend of mine loves these fish so I'd love to hear and update...

[seahorse]

:cry He is SO skinny. I don't think a fish could be thinner. :cry I will try to get some baby brine shrimp eggs but since they are so tiny I don't know if he will see them! (He dosen't seem to see the frozen cyclopezze) :( Any sugustions would be appreciated. He also looks like he has been bit on two of his fins. :( I love him but I don't think he will make it.