Sudden Death

[poomoon]

Hi All, Sadly, my male pellet eating mandarin dragonet died. How it died, I'm not sure.

The other night I came back, I saw his head seems to be 'nipped' in a lot of areas, in fact his head almost turned white already, but still swimming normal and eating as usual. I wanted to quarantine him but quite hard to catch, so instead of stressing him and the others further, I didn't pursue.

The next morning before going off for work, I observed he had a hole on the left side (see picture, just to show the location), though still swimming around, and since I was rushing for a conference, just went off. The hole was about 2mm dia, and was quite a 'perfect hole'.

When I cam back that evening, my maid said it already died when she cleaned, so she caught and threw him already, and i didn't get to analyze himany further.

Any ideas what could have caused it ? Sorry that's all the info I can provide.

Thanks.

[Copperband]

HLLE?? not enough nutrition...wow where on earth you got a pallet feeding Mandarin??!!

probably its able to remain healthy for a long while as there are lots of criters in your tank and its feedin on both pallet and critters..... maybe the critters got finished and the mandarin is 100% dependant on the pallet.... maybe this pallet lost its nutrition value?

imo madrarin problems are usually tied in to diet..

[poomoon]

HLLE?? not enough nutrition...wow where on earth you got a pallet feeding Mandarin??!!

probably its able to remain healthy for a long while as there are lots of criters in your tank and its feedin on both pallet and critters..... maybe the critters got finished and the mandarin is 100% dependant on the pallet.... maybe this pallet lost its nutrition value?

imo madrarin problems are usually tied in to diet..

Just by accident he started feeding on pellets.

He eats a lot, NLS, Fauna Marin Spirulina, Garlic Soaked pellets, cyclopeze, even Fauna Marin Ultra LPS ... I also keep it supplied with tigger pods, baby brine, adult brine which i also soak ... he's actually fat. I'm still trying to figure out what the hole was on his head ... his body was ok, it was only his head, where the hole was ...

[iskay]

Bacterial infection?

[peacemaker]

Isopod?

[yikai]

i had a pellet feeding mandarin pair before.

kept for 2 years then one day just vanish.

[poomoon]

Bacterial infection?

sorry was away ... not sure, but was thinking that maybe at first he did get nipped (dunno by who), then from there maybe the affected area wasn't producing that slimy protection, which then became a target of infection / parasites / disease ... whatever it was ...

[poomoon]

i had a pellet feeding mandarin pair before.

kept for 2 years then one day just vanish.

eloped ?

[poomoon]

Isopod?

possible ? scary ...

[jackywongto]

possible ? scary ...

hey jun. sorry to hear the demise of your mandarin.

hard to come by a pellet eating one.

hope you find another one soon !

[Thexder]

i had a pellet feeding mandarin pair before.

kept for 2 years then one day just vanish.

Same case here. I had 1 pellet eating Mandarin from Henry. Then bought a female from CF. They paired up for while then suddenly both disappeared

[Thexder]

Recently I had my Foxface and Sohal die suddenly. Both are eating and swimming all over, then next day

Both were with me for at least 2 years.

[poomoon]

hey jun. sorry to hear the demise of your mandarin.

hard to come by a pellet eating one.

hope you find another one soon !

Thanks bro. Thing is, it didn't eat pellets when I got it !

Anyway, I might have a new mandarin in the next few days, so have to spend time to train it again ... Just finished training my green clown goby

[peacemaker]

Bro, do share your training process so that others could learn from it as well?

[poomoon]

Same case here. I had 1 pellet eating Mandarin from Henry. Then bought a female from CF. They paired up for while then suddenly both disappeared

Recently I had my Foxface and Sohal die suddenly. Both are eating and swimming all over, then next day

Both were with me for at least 2 years.

Yeah, a lot of reefers I think have experienced similar cases at one time. Hopefully we can learn more eventually so we can prevent these ... something in nature that we don't fully understand yet ...

[poomoon]

Bro, do share your training process so that others could learn from it as well?

Hey peace, I did earlier in Gooffish thread on pellet eating mandarin. Here it is :

it's not easy, but not impossible ... as i mentioned in my thread, my feeding one was more of an accident. so just for sharing, i recently tried doing a similar method with my green clown goby. first week or so would not eat at all. then he started on tigger pods for about a week. then went to bigger - live brine, which went on for 2 weeks or so. for these i was target feeding 2 clown gobies using a turkey blaster. after a month, when they see the turkey blaster coming, they start swimming up to the tip to grab live food from it. then i started to soak small pellets, and pump it out the turkey blaster as well. 50/50 success rate. the green clown now eats pellets (for 3 successive days already), while the citron goby still spat it out. last night without the turkey blaster, i dropped soaked pellets, and saw mr green swim out of his nook and eat 4 pellets, then swam back ... success ! i'll be starting on a new mandarin sometime next week ... will keep ya posted ...

just a while ago, just did the same thing, and yeah I got it on vid on iPhone where the green goby snaps 2 pellets ... so it's really a success. still not giving up on the citron.

hope this helps, and more reefers can have success in pellet feeding

[peacemaker]

Did you isolate them in a feeding net or betta box to target feed them?

[poomoon]

Did you isolate them in a feeding net or betta box to target feed them?

Nope. Out in the open. Especially for the clown gobies, it's good for them to be comfy finding their own place, as their nature is just to be so called boring in almost not moving in that place, awaiting pods or or whatever to pass by and they just grab em. Quite sensitive guys as when I tried in isolation or even when they just get bothered out of their nook, they decide not to eat anything. Challenge is to know where they hang out, my citron decided to stay 'inside' one of the zoa colonies, so when they're open, you can't see him. But during feeding time, he suddenly pokes his head out waiting. For mandarin's they're easier to target feed bcos you see em wandering around. Also, feed all the rest of fishes first before target feeding.

[poomoon]

here's sample vid for green clown goby just completed training

Goby.mov

[peacemaker]

He is fast!

[poomoon]

He is fast!

hehe yeah. he's actually faster when he gobbled up 2-3 pellets at one go then swim back. sorry for the misoriented vid