Starving LMB

[cvonseggern]

Despite a healthy crop of green hair algae, my lawnmower blenny appears to be starving to death. He looks like a knife blade with a head on the end. I frequently see him working away at the tank walls and there are lots of his little scrape marks on the rock, but I don't ever see him really eating the hair algae, and he doesn't show any interest in nori either. Can anyone recommend something else he'd be likely to eat?

[Nano_Steve]

i used to get mine really fat on frozen mysid. try target feeding him for awhile with a turkeybaster and get him used to the site of it, mine was used to it in a week and would always come out of hiding right up to the mouth of the baster to feed! it was hillarious!

-steve

[Tim Marvin]

Unfortunately by the time they get to that point it is usually too late, but you may try some seaweeds.

[cvonseggern]

Well, it doesn't look good. Garlic-soaked nori is of no interest, as was a turkey baster load of mysis that I put right in front of him. I'm going to have to try some of the other seaweed options, but I give him less than 50/50 at this point.

****it. I hate losing fish, especially because I wasn't paying enough attention. I thought he was OK because I could see him feeding, but then I looked at him from a top view this morning and thought "holy crap!"

[Tim Marvin]

It happens to everyone...

[Reef69]

Im sorry to hear about your fish, try some formula 2, it has garlic so it may attract him to it..hope this helps..

[cvonseggern]

In the end, I think Tim was right that it was too late. I found him in the clutches of the red brittle yesterday morning. I'm 100% sure that the star didn't kill him, given the circumstances. Even if it did, he probably wasn't in any condition to survive by the time it got to him.

I could see him trying to eat the whole time we had him, and he did eat a little frozen mysis when I spot-fed, but it was too little too late.

Deb and I have had 100% mortality with fish bought from the store where we got him. One other was a foxface that expired of unexplained causes about six weeks after coming home, and Deb bought a pair of ORA percs that apparently had brooklynella or amyloodinium (not sure which; female showed a white filmy discoloration in places, not distinct white spots like ich). They expired at about 10 days despite our attempts to save the female with hypo once we realized there was an infection (male died before showing any visible symptoms). These two were in a tank at the store with wild-caught clowns, but that didn't click for us as a possible problem until after they got sick.

I'm not sure it's appropriate to name that shop here, but needless to say it was NOT Fin Addict or Aquatic Warehouse. We have already decided that from now on we're sticking to mail-order and those two local shops.

[Tim Marvin]

Sorry to hear about it.

[cvonseggern]

Thanks, Tim. It's certainly a bummer, but there's not much we can do about it except learn from the experience and move on...

[MikeP]

Possible he had intestinal parasites / worms if he was eating and not putting on any weight. Obviously a lengthy quarantine might have shown this and you could have treated but it also could have been damage from collection.