Blue Spot Jawfish - out of character

[SH4D0W]

Hello all,
I am a new comer and this is my first post so please be gentle!


I am hoping you might be able to help me out a little; I have a Blue Spot that is of a mature age and fully grown, he has been in my tank for some 2 years now, well i say my tank... it was my sisters but we have recently bought it off of them. He had burrowed a nice little cave in the center of the tank where he appeared to be happy, he did get some grazes on the back end but i put this down to stress with the move OR where he was rubbing against the rock, anyway, I came home from work today and found him perched on top of a fallen thermometer in the bottom end of my tank touching the glass, completely exposed, this is not like him. My missus fed the fish at about 1400 GMT and he was in his home at that point and was feeding fine, at 1820 when i got home he wouldn't feed when i target fed him, as soon as my other fish came to see he would scatter off and escape, he was up swimming at the top of the tank. I have just tried to feed a small amount of flake, nothing, and also some pellet but again, he turned his nose up. I did add some Activol and Garlic to my feed and he just spat at the food as if he was pushing the food away.

I say out of character as this is not what i am used to seeing, so i am hoping you guys could point me in the right direction.

It is worth mentioning that i lost my Shrimp 2 weeks ago and my pair of Bangai Cardinals a week apart and also the 2 year old Bangai during the move.

I have added some new Clowns and a Mandarin which have all taken well.

My set up is:
Aqua One Regency 100 (220ltr tank)
Aqua One 1050 filter
Ehiem 2229 wet and dry filter
JBL 18W UV Filter (on the aqua one)
Two T5 lights
Two AquaRays in blue (the top end jobbies)
Power heads positioned to eliminate dead spots
Heater set to 26 Celsius.

A recent 5 days ago full water test resulted in:
PH - 8.2 (today reads the same)
Nitrate - 50
Nitrite - 0.2
02 - 4
Ammoniom - 0.05
Alkalinity - 9
Phosphate Sensitive - 1
Calcium - 0

Water temp is 26.2 - 26.7


The only changes i have made since i have taken over the tank is the adding of a few new fish, an anemone, some carbon for the 1050 filter as a precaution due to the shrimp dieing and a liter of new Bio Balls for my wet and dry, i mixed the new bioballs in with the old and then re-topped the trays up.

Can anyone please help me out.

I am very worried about Mr Spot.

Best regards

Martin (on behalf of Mr Spot)

PS- ill post some pics in a moment.

 

[SH4D0W]

[h=2]I went down to check at 3am and Mr Spot had moved to the other corner of the tank, this morning i checked at 7 and he had made himself a little pit in the same he was at 3am, i put some flake in and he turned to have a look but did not eat, i put a bit of RS MYSIS under his nose and i can not be too sure if he ate or spat it away. Either way this is really not like him.[/h]

 

[TL1000RSquid]

He look otherwise healthy?

Based off your readings I'd do a partial water change, also your calcium is 0? thats not good, how often are water changes done, what brand salt are you using? Corals and shrimp need calcium.

 

[TL1000RSquid]

You also may want to consider dumping the bioballs completely, sand and live rock in the tank maintain plenty of beneficial bacteria, bioballs could contribute to high nitrates. I'd just run sponges/pads which get rinsed weekly, and purigen/carbon.

Do you have a protein skimmer?

 

[Khemul]

Nothing about those water readings looks good.

 

[TL1000RSquid]

ph is ok, alkalinity i dont know what kind of test is being used but if its 7dKH thats ok. o2 I don't know I've never tested o2 in my tanks But yeah the rest is pretty bad, especially with a nem in there he can't be happy.

 

[Fractalis]

is he starting to get skinny?

 

[greech]

Agreed, eater quality is of concern here and I would assume was the reason for the other losses. You said you have ahd this fish for 2 years but does that include the time your sister had him. Sounds like the tank was moved recently? SW tanks don't move well. Stirring up the sandbed and the detritus in the rocks can easily cause a spike and that's no bueno. Keeping rock out of the water for extended periods can also reult in spikes. Water changes may help at this point along with frequent changes of carbon. The use of an ammonia media may also be something to consider. You should be testing your water daily at this point.

I wouldn't suggest any drastic changes to filtration right now. Removing, bioballs, etc at this point may do more harm than good. Once things settle down, you can consider slowly moving out the bioballs and possibly consider moving away from the power/cansiter filters to a sump.

You should also not be adding livestock at this point either. Get you water quality in check and let the tank remature a little (I know its hard to resist).