Struggling mandarin

[Kristy]

My mandarin pair are definitely among my favorite fishies in the tank, so I am just heart-broken watching my little male mandarin struggling yesterday and today. We have had the female for prob 9 months and got the male about 5 months ago. He was really tiny and has about tripled in size in that time, so he has been healthy and growing.

Yesterday morning I noticed that he looks all beat up, his tail has been shredded and so have his little wing-like fins. Appears as if he has been jumped by a tankmate. Right now he is inclined to find a safe little spot in a cave and just hang out there until someone happens along to disturb him and then he moves on to find another spot. This guy has never taken to the frozen food like our female has, only hunts for pods, so I am worried about him getting enough to eat and recovering while he is not so active. He moves around, but not nearly as much and a little awkwardly.

Not at all sure who the culprit is but a new-ish pistol shrimp would be my primary suspect. He came from Ace's classroom and was suspected of killing the hi band goby that he shared a tank with. Would have a hard time getting the shrimp out anyway. Nothing else is new except a small six-line wrasse.

Any thoughts on how to give my little mandarin some extra TLC for his recovery? Or do I just light a candle for him? Think I should move him to our 20g until he looks stronger?

[ErikH]

Move the shrimp out.... No reason to seperate the pair!

[Kristy]

Moved him to the fuge for now... duh, crawling with pods and no other inhabitants... but he doesn't look good. Not much hope for him.

[ErikH]

That sucks :(

[chark]

I am sorry to hear about your mandarin. I hope he makes it.

Does your 210 have lots of pods still after the upgrade? I just upgraded to a 185 from a 75. I want a mandarin but I do not see pods yet, its only been 6 weeks since the upgrade. I had them in the 75. How long did it take you to see the pods?

[Mr Cob]

Can you add the female in there too? I would want my wife with me if I was sick and moved to a food store house.

[BioCube14]

melafix i hear is good to help heal fish put it in another tank alone

[hobogato]

melafix i hear is good to help heal fish put it in another tank alone

if you use it, watch your skimmer closely, i have heard it will make them overflow like crazy.

[Kristy]

Well our little guy didn't make it. :(

Kristy is pretty sure it was our relatively new pistol shrimp who tore him up (most of his rear tail was gone and his side fins were all messed up). I am not so sure, although he could have been the culprit. Who knows? If it was the pistol shrimp, I do not see anyway we could ever get him out of there, without dismantaling the whole tank.

I told Kristy it could possibly have been a hermit crab, our coral banded shrimp, or even our small brittlestar. Besides our small flame hawk, none of our other fish are aggressive. I just don't see the hawk doing it.

It seems like maybe something snuck up on him at night, maybe?

Who knows, but Kristy is really going to be sad.

Bummer
-Mike

[ismvel]

Sorry for your loss....for that reason I have stayed away from cool little guys like the coral banded and pistol shrimp....I know that the coral banded get big enough to do damage so smaller fish...I hate losing fish....or corals....ANYTHING!!!!

[crabman]

a coral banded was ousted from our tank for suspicion of this very same thing.

[JimD]

Oh man, I hate stories like this, sometimes we grieve the loss of our pets more than our human associates!

[aprilmayjune]

coral bandeds are evil. i watched one hunt down a perc clown once. i didn't believe he would actually attack but the second he jumped on the clown my hands dove in and grabbed the shrimp. no more coral bandeds for me.

[reeferRob]

I wouldn't rule out the hawkfish, I have a red spotted hawkfish that I have been trying to catch for well over a year now that kills anythinhg and everything I put in there if it isn't bigger than he is by a long ways. 2 lawnmower gobies, a mandarin, too many to even remember.

[Kristy]

Thanks for all the support you guys. It was just devastating to lose the little guy.

Now I guess we need to focus on figuring out who our culprit is and may just tear this tank up to find it. Guess we have more candidates for the villain than I thought.

[Mr Cob]

Thanks for all the support you guys. It was just devastating to lose the little guy.

Now I guess we need to focus on figuring out who our culprit is and may just tear this tank up to find it. Guess we have more candidates for the villain than I thought.

Sorry about the loss! I would remove the coral banded. While I have not ever had a problem with one...it seems as thought they are blamed enough times to not want to chance them.