Another dead diamond sifter

[Rhodes19]

Ok, I give up. I just lost my 4th diamond sifter goby. The first one went carpet surfing after a year or so in my 29. His replacement lasted about a month before I found him belly up. The 3rd one lasted about 6 weeks in the 40g before I found the hermit crabs munching on him. And last night I found my 4th diamond sifter belly up. He made it 6 weeks in quarantine, was eating flake, mysis, live black worms, and marine cuisine with no trouble and lasted 2 weeks after he was transfered to the 180. He hid for a day or 2 but after that he was alway up front and sifting away. Never saw any one picking on him.

Am I missing something? I thought the diamond sifters were supposed to be hearty fish but with the exception of my first diamond sifter, I just can't keep them alive. Ammonia and nitrites are 0, nitrates are around 12 ppm, sg is 35, temp is 75 deg, and all the other fish are doing fine.

I like the diamond sifter gobys because the do a great job cleaning and turning the sand and they are full of personality. Is there another sand sifter, fish or invert, that does a good job turning and keeping the sand bed clean that might have a better survival rate?

 

[Frankie]

Did you buy this fish at the LFS Chris? You may want to try a reputable online dealer like Dr F&S.
I normally don't recommend adding fish directly to your DT prior to qt but in this case you may need to. F&S fish are all QT anyhow and should be safe enough to add directly after a proper acclimation.

I do not think it is you or the tank, more then likely the source of the fish. Most of our LFS here get there fish from unethical suppliers. Your sifter may have had damage done internally from the capture process and it just took this long for it to kill him. Even a fish that eats well and looks well could be suffering from cyanide poisoning.

Here is a cool sifter that is tank bread by ora at a good price you may be interested in:

 

[Rhodes19]

Thanks Frank,

Yeah, the last 3 came from the lfs down the street. The first one came form the lfs up in Hanahan. I may have to start getting all my fish from F&S.

 

[vinny2261]

Did you buy this fish at the LFS Chris? You may want to try a reputable online dealer like Dr F&S.
I normally don't recommend adding fish directly to your DT prior to qt but in this case you may need to. F&S fish are all QT anyhow and should be safe enough to add directly after a proper acclimation.

I do not think it is you or the tank, more then likely the source of the fish. Most of our LFS here get there fish from unethical suppliers. Your sifter may have had damage done internally from the capture process and it just took this long for it to kill him. Even a fish that eats well and looks well could be suffering from cyanide poisoning.

Here is a cool sifter that is tank bread by ora at a good price you may be interested in:


Before you go telling people to shop at a non sponsored online only store instead of your nieghborhood LFS. Maybe He has something else in His tank that could possibly be killing His new fish. Maybe the tank is not quite big enough to support a sifter? I thought you guys ( the moderartors, staff ) Already worked out these issues of recomendeding non sponsored suppliers. There is nothing wrong with your LFS. They deal with the same death and loss when they get there orders to, just a much larger scale. There are many reasons fish do not survive, Fresh and Salt. But Don't blame your LFS.

 

[leebca]

I think what could be better appreciated is that the LFS obtains marine fish from a wholesaler, which is usually an importer. The importer/wholesaler usually obtains their fish from a variety of exporter/sources. So, with so many 'handlers' involved, it is hard to tie fish deaths to an LFS. Exceptions to this are those LFSs with obvious poor systems, not knowing how to care for marine fish, performing little or no maintenance or obviously not taking care of their fish. Does your LFS seem to be one like this?

I believe you have a situation here which is not uncommon in the hobby: The fish does not get along with the current setup. Without more info, it is hard to say. One thing, the setup is too small to put the fish in the thriving mode. The small area to sift puts the fish into a survival mode. This fish 'sifts' several square yards of surface area in its normal habitat. I would not put this fish in any tank having less than 7 square feet of surface substrate, of which at least more than half of it is exposed/available to the sifter.

Even still, the sifter must be fed prepared foods. There are not enough pods and wastes, and not in sufficient nutritious levels, in the substrate in a closed system to feed a sifter, so the sifter must be trained to regularly eat nutritious prepared foods. This is much like what I recommend for a pod eater: Food Presentation.

If you want a more thorough evaluation of what might be going on Rhodes, then I will need an extensive amount of information, in detail. But unless you are willing to spend the time and, in detail, address each question and obtain each analysis, then don't start on this list:
How old is your tank? When did it originally cycle?
What is the size (dimensions and gallonage) of your aquarium? Does the gallonage include the volume from the sump and any refugium?
Do you use carbon, skimmer, mechanical or other chemical filtration?.
List all specimens & sizes in the tank (fish, inverts, corals, clams, snails, crabs, shrimp, etc.).
Do you use a quarantine tank and procedure?
Foods you use and feeding schedules.
How long have you had this fish? If the fish was recently acquired (6 weeks or less), two more questions: Did you treat it or give it a dip before it went into the aquarium? How did you acclimate it – what procedure?
Do you use any vitamins? Fat additives? Any elemental or other additives? Please list all.
Chemistries – you gave some. Do you test for Phosphate, alkalinity, calcium and magnesium? Please give actual current numbers for everything. Have these numbers been changing lately?
Water parameters – please give actual numbers (pH and your pH range, salinity or sp. gr. & range, temperature range)
Do you see any of the following in your system: hair algae; micro algae; cyanobacteria growths (red slime algae); dinoflagellate (zooxanthellae) growths; brown algae; diatom growth; slimes; off-colored patches on rock or substrate that are not coralline; etc.?
Water changes (how much and how often).
What is your source water? (Tap water, RO water, DI water, RO/DI, distilled, etc.)
List what you added or taken out of your aquarium system (living, decorations, and equipment) during the past 6 weeks.
Maintenance schedule. What have you done lately?

The goals with having the above information in detail is that we will need to know as much about your system as you do and in some cases, more about your system than you do.

 

[vinny2261]

Not to rain on your parade but, You have the people that actually catch the fish, like Les, Now, He is supposed to hold the fish in quarintine to treat a freshly caught fish for parasites. Then it is passed on to a wholesaler who is supposed to do the same thing of treating and holding the fish. Then it is passed to the retail outlets or online suppliers. What usually seem to happen IMO is the fish is held at hypo salinity, starved, treated and then passed to the next guy who treats and holds the fish. I am really surprised fish live through the process, I don't think We, people would do very well. If the fish is not Tank raised, it is then forced to eat something other than its natural food and has a lot less of it, food to choose from. It is a very stressful process, if you could imagine someone scoping you up in a net, throwing you in a bucket, taking you out of the water, putting you in a tank you cannot breath very well in, putting you in a bag, a box, throwing you on a plane, throwing you in another tank you cannot breath very well in, then throwing back in a bag, a box off to the retail store, who does this process one more time for you to take home such a cool animal. Think of it...... Also fish do not eat waste, however in saltwater the metabalism of the fish is high and when a fish poops it still has nutrients left in it. Sand sifters usually require bigger tanks with more sand. This allows for more creatures to live in the sand bed. the sifter fish then goes through the sand bed "sifting" the sand to strain out the little creatures that it eats. If there is not enough food the fish starves slowly and dies. Some fish do not take to outside food as easily as others which keeps the hobby challenging and great enjoyment when you have success.

 

[Rhodes19]

Hi Lee,

Thanks, I appreciate the help. I'll get the info and answer your questions the best I can. If nothing else comes of this, I can always learn more about my system and how to improve it.

 

[Frankie]

Hey Vinny, sorry my post upset you so much. It is misleading in a negative way to all LFS when I was just pointing out the ones that are available to Rhodes and I here in SC. I know his tank pretty intimately BTW so I feel comfortable in my recommendations. There are no LFS here supplying net caught fish. All the fish are sick weather the LFS realizes it or not. I have bought and treated many fish from them in the past with negative results. Great people but lacking in quality.
Being Chris is my friend AND Dr. I have no problem with referring him to a good source be it sponsor or not. If you have a problem with that bring it up to an admin or flag the post. But lets stick to the topic.

Thanks for coming in Lee. I was not aware of the surface space for a goby to be so large. 7 SF is quite a number in this hobby!
As Chris mentioned, the goby was treated and quarantined perfectly to your specifications and actively eating prepared foods.
The sand bed is fairly open in his 180 since we rescaped it and it looked pretty well established for a sand bed just coming up on it's first year. Even so, the fish ate well without it and I doubt very much it was a nutrition issue.

Unfortunately the fish is no longer available so I cannot be 100% sure of what caused the death. It would have been interesting to dissect it.

Before you go telling people to shop at a non sponsored online only store instead of your nieghborhood LFS. Maybe He has something else in His tank that could possibly be killing His new fish. Maybe the tank is not quite big enough to support a sifter? I thought you guys ( the moderartors, staff ) Already worked out these issues of recomendeding non sponsored suppliers. There is nothing wrong with your LFS. They deal with the same death and loss when they get there orders to, just a much larger scale. There are many reasons fish do not survive, Fresh and Salt. But Don't blame your LFS.

 

[vinny2261]

I am sorry I came across kinda of gruff. I had a LFS for about 5 years but had to shut down because of the economy. I worked very hard to provide a qaulity product for my customers. But as you said this does not help in the current problem. There are a lot of territory issue in saltwater tanks. Although I believe you said it was a 180 gallon the new addition may have been picked on. What else is being kept in the setup, as mentioned before, maybe it got picked on or maybe after you moved it to the big aquarium it did not get enough food to stay healthy.

 

[Frankie]

I am sorry I came across kinda of gruff. I had a LFS for about 5 years but had to shut down because of the economy. I worked very hard to provide a qaulity product for my customers. But as you said this does not help in the current problem. There are a lot of territory issue in saltwater tanks. Although I believe you said it was a 180 gallon the new addition may have been picked on. What else is being kept in the setup, as mentioned before, maybe it got picked on or maybe after you moved it to the big aquarium it did not get enough food to stay healthy.

Fully understandable Vinny. I did not come off very pro LFS I am sorry to hear about your loss in business. Being a business owner myself in this dying economy I am well aware of the struggles we face as entrepreneurs.

I went over to Rhodes house last night to check out his new skimmer from Mark. (cool skimmer!)
I haven't seen the tank in over a month so I looked it over fairly closely. There are some issues but nothing that would cause the sudden death of an eating goby. All the fish appear to be very healthy and active. None of them are large enough or the type to pick on a healthy goby.
Without the fish to inspect I can only guess as to what caused the death.
I am guessing cyanide poisoning. Cyanide capturing is currently being practiced in the south and Indo-Pacific areas where this fish (Valenciennea puellaris) comes from.
It is a silent killer difficult to detect for most if not all.

 

[Rhodes19]

Hi Lee,

Here is the information you were asking for. I hope it helps give you an idea about my system and I would appreciate any insight about it and what I can do to improve it. It is a work in progress.

The lfs I got the last 3 gobies from seems to be like that. Some maintenance, no quarantine or treatments. Fish come in and fish go out. The tanks get feed flake and brine shrimp and mysis. Not the cleanest of places. Now the lfs I got my first goby that survived is clean, the folks seem to be knowledgeable, I see them doing some maintenance on occasions when I’m there and the owner told me they run a low level of copper in the fish tanks to help control parasites. I feel more confidant with them.

My tank is a 180 g with a 55g tank as a sump/fuge with about 40g of water in it. The 180 is 6’x2’x2’, has about 200 lbs of live rock, I would guestimate that about 50% of the bottom is sand around 4” deep. So, about 6 square feet maybe? Total water volume including the sump, I’m guessing 172g (GARF calc). My return pump pushes 1100 gph and I have a Korellia 4 and a Sicce 4 for flow (about 2400 gph).

My tank was established the first week of January, 2010 so it’s almost a year old. I put about 70 lbs of life rock and about 160 lbs of diy rock that I made with crushed oyster shells and type III Portland cement (kured in fw for 4 months). After I got the SG and temp up I tossed in a couple of raw deli shrimp and started the cycle. The cycle seemed to last about a month but I let it go (with shrimp and flake food) until the end of February and then moved my corals and fish over. Frankie helped me rerockscaped the tank about 3 months ago and we pulled out all the diy rock and replace it with about 130 lbs of live rock. There was a slight spike in nitrite and nitrates but not much and was back down to 0 and less than 12 ppm within a week.

My filtration system includes a filter sock that I change out every 2-3 days and a big clump of cheato in my sump (6500k, 55 w cfb flood light on 18 hours on reverse cycle). I haven’t used carbon but I’m looking at adding a media reactor with some at some point. I did not have a skimmer until 2 days ago when I got a SWC 200 from skimerwhisperer. It’s been running now for almost 40 hours. I haven’t used any chemical filtration. Now that I have a skimmer in the system I was thinking about doing zeovit (need to do more research).

My live stock include:

2 occellaris about 2” and 1 ½”
2 green chromis about an inch each
A yellow tail damsel about 1 ¼”
A 6 line wrasse about 2 ¼”
A Blue Tang (Paracanthurus hepatus) about 2 ½”

2 cleaner shrimp
4 peppermint shrimp (haven’t seen them since they went in)
A coral banded shrimp
4 nassarius snails (haven’t seen them since they went in)
About 100 dwarf cerith snails
About 10 nerite snails
A bunch of small tube worms (hitch hikers)
5-6 hermit crabs

3 montis about 4” in diameter
3 montis about 1 ½ - 2” in diameter
A green acro about 2” tall with branching
A purple acro about 1 ¼” and starting to branch
7 fungia ranging from 0.5 – 2” in diameter
Hammer head about 4x4”
Frogspawn about 3x3”
Acan about 1 ½” in diameter
3 Candy canes 2 head, 3 head, and 5-7 head
Duncan about 6 heads
A finger leather coral about 3” tall
2 toad stools 2” and 4” diameter
4-5 riccoidias about ¾ - 1” in diameter
Anthelia big cluster, about a 5x5 patch
2 GSPs 2x3”
3 zoanthids 1/2x1/2” 1x1” 2x2”
2 Kenya trees about 2” tall

At some point I would like to add some star fish, clams and urchins.

When I first started I did not QT my fish until I found your QT posts. I had the occellaris, green chromis’, and a royal gramma (lost after a month in the 180) for over a year but I QTed and treated them before they went into the 180. The rest were QTed following your guidelines. Fresh water dip, QT tank for six weeks and dewormed, then released into the 180 (acclimated first). The blue tang I had to treat with cupramine for 2 weeks (after it was in Qt for 5 weeks) and QT continued for 6 more weeks after the cupramine treatment was completed. I QTed the diamond sifter for 6 weeks and gave him mysis shrimp soaked in dewormer. I also put a Tupperware container with sand in the QT tank (29g) for him.

I feed on a daily basis. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I feed either mysis shrimp or marine cuisine (I alternate every other feeding). On Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, I feed flake food. Sunday I feed either flake or mysis/marine cuisine. About once a month or so I will feed some live black worms. I also put in some green or purple algae on a clip about once a week. I’ve tried the gelatinized table food that came as samplers in an Instant Ocean salt bucket but no one would touch it. Not even the hermits or shrimp. I finally got some powdered kelp and spirulina last week and some agar agar and will be trying to make my own mush in the near future.

I had the diamond sifter goby for 9 weeks. 7 weeks in the 29g QT and 2 weeks in the 180. He didn’t eat for the first week but then he started eating mysis shrimp soaked in vitamins. Tried garlic once and he did go for the food right away. He started eating marine cuisine and would eat flake food every so often. I feed him some live black worms a few times. The first time he ignored it, the second time he nibbled at them, the third time he went after them. When I brought him home, he got a fresh water dip, I acclimated him to temp and water quality, and released him into the QT after about an hour. The second week I started a cupramine treatment as a precaution. I didn’t want to wait for 5 weeks only to find out he had ich/velvet and have to treat him when he was in a weaker state like what happened with my blue tang. For the first 4 weeks he would hide in the pvc joints I had in the QT and for the last 3 weeks, he would come out of hiding every so often and swim around even when food wasn’t being given. When I moved him form the QT into the DT, I put him in a bowl and drip acclimated him for an hour. I try to keep the water parameters in the QT as close as possible to the water parameters in the DT.

I used Boyd’s Vita Chem vitamins and soak the mysis/marine cuisine in it before feeding. I’ll also use it in the mush I’ll be making. I don’t have any fat additives other than what’s in the food. I haven’t used any elemental additives other than a Kent buffer to help bring up my Kh when needed.

Here are my last parameters:

SG 35 ppm
pH 8.0
Kh 7
Ca 460
NH3 0
NO2 0
NO3 10-12 mg/L
Phos 0
Mg 750
Temp 74.8 – 75.6

The pH will fluxuate between 7.9 to 8.1, the alk drops frequently (down to 5) and I add a buffer every other week or so. The rest tend to remain constant.

I do have some green hair algae and some cyano in the tank that is under a 250 w MH on the right of the tank. I have some T5s over the middle and left side but now algae under them. (I’ll be switching to MH when I can). I found some pale green bubble algae the other day on a rock near the top under the MH. I have some cheato in my sump that has doubled in size over 6 months and there is some cyano in the sump as well. The cyano in the tank is on some of the sand bed and some on a rock or to on the sand bed. I try to do a 30g water change every week and I siphon it off the sand and rock.

My source of water is RO/DI. I have an Ocean Reef + 1, 5 stage 75 gpd filter. One of the filters is for chloramine. My TDS going into the DI is 6 and is 0 coming out.

I don’t think I have added or taken out anything over the past 6 weeks. We did rerocksape the tank about 3 months ago. The last thing I added to the tank was the blue tang and he went in about 3 months ago as well.

Maintenance schedule includes changing the filter sock every 2-3 days, adding buffer as needed, and a 30 g water change every week. Occasionally I might have to go 2 weeks between water changes. I’ll scrape the glass of any algae or coralline once a week. Last water change will be 2 weeks ago Sunday. Buffer was added last week.

Ok, I think that answers all the questions. If I missed something please let me know. If I’m doing something majorly wrong I want to know so I can fix it. Any comments and advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks again Lee.

Chris

 

[vinny2261]

Very nice.....Well sometimes things just die I have also heard from one of my information guys (supplier) that sometimes the fish is caught in deeper water and it is not acclimated, brought to the surface properly and this damages the fish, like the bends on people, and the fish is actually slowly dieing from injurys you cannot see. One more thought is that it is a big tank, not knowing all the info on it , have you ever come out at night with a flash light to check for rough crabs?
Vince

 

[Rhodes19]

Very nice.....Well sometimes things just die I have also heard from one of my information guys (supplier) that sometimes the fish is caught in deeper water and it is not acclimated, brought to the surface properly and this damages the fish, like the bends on people, and the fish is actually slowly dieing from injurys you cannot see. One more thought is that it is a big tank, not knowing all the info on it , have you ever come out at night with a flash light to check for rough crabs?
Vince

Hi Vince,

Thanks. That could be a possibility, I have read how traumatic it can be to the fish with some of the capturing methods. My wife laughs at me some times when I look at the tank at night with a flashlight before going to bed. She asks me if I'm doing a head count or bed check!!! I have about 5 or 6 hermit crabs and I've never seen them pick on any thing. I was thinking about getting an emerald crab at one time but heard a lot of stories about them picking on fish and corals. I know my system isn't the greatest but I keep working to improve it as I can. It just bothers me when I loose a fish and I'm not sure why. If I'm causing it I'll feel bad but I'll fix it so it won't happen again. I learned a couple of lessons when I first tired to QT before I found Lee's posts. I may try one more diamond sifter from a different location/store and if that doesn't work, I'll have to find something else I can find to keep the sand clean. The diamonds do have personality though.

 

[Frankie]

Yeah, don't give up. We all loose stuff in this hobby. It is a part of it.
You may want to try a single sand sifting starfish. I had one in my 120 for two years befor it climbed out Did a great job keeping the sand clean.
I don't know what greatest needs to look like but for your first time reef Chris, you did better then some old timers I know. You should be very proud of your build. It is very impressive!

 

[Rhodes19]

Thanks Frank, I appreciate that.

 

[vinny2261]

The crabs I am speaking of are not the nice ones. They come in on live rock as little hitchhikers that you usually don't see. I have found them hiding in rocks where they cover their hole with smaller rocks when they are in and move the rocks to come out at night to feed. Now that I mention it if this where the case you would probably of only found the skeleton. Seems to me that most predators will be more nocturnal and hunt while everyone else is sleeping. Easier to catch your food I suppose.