Emaciated Dragon Goby

some photos of our new little dragon ("elliott"). not great quality unfortunately was using a camera phone but you get the idea how thin he is. the second one he is perching on the thermometer. he's kind of all over the place like that, on the plastic plants, on top of the heater... he's turning out to be quite a little character!

thanks all for help. sploke, yep there are some ornaments and things for him to hide in (and he does!). errors, thank you for the words of encouragement, i hope mine outgrows his "playing dead" phase too LOL

elliott_mar6_2007.jpg elliott_thermometer.jpg
 
Carbon does remove some impurities--not ammonia though. If you are having ammonia problems, then your tank isn't cycled properly. The only thing I add to my tank is Prime.
 
I add prime to my tank but I usually use carbon as well. The water at my house is horrible and I like to think it "helps" it some. Dunno if it does or not.

As stated just make sure he gets plenty of food. I usually drop shrimp pellets right in front of my vg's head. He'll be plump before you know it.
 
just wanted to thank everyone for your help with my little skinny dragon goby... unfortunately he died saturday morning - i guess it was too late to save him, he just wouldn't eat :(

::sniffs, gotta stop trying to save the world::

i took him back to petsm*rt, and found that they had 3 of them left -- one of which had been seriously injuried (i think they dropped a heavy rock ornament on him, based on the way they flip it over, out of the way, to dip them out. the aquatics manager didn't deny that this is what probably happened) - so i took the smaller of the two healthy ones (maybe saved him a bad fate anyway). i'm a sucker what can i say. he has his own 20G tank for now (even managed to find some bio-spira over the weekend - yay), yes that's 4 tanks in my living room now LOL.. 50G, 29G, 20G, and my 10G fry tank (does that count? i don't think so, nor the two in my kitchen, 10G hospital tank and a 5G fry tank).

Anyone local in northern utah want some pretty little marbled mollies and/or swordtails? :eek:

anyway thanks again for all the advice and help.
 
Of course your fry tanks count! I even count my refugeum as a tank, since I keep a staghorn crab in it.
 
LOL well the thing about the 5G tank is that I had the mama swordtail in there with some melafix because she wasn't looking or acting well... the next morning i woke up and there were upwards of 50 babies in there with her... *snerk* i had actually planned to let her have this brood in the community tank because i've already got so many babies but... well... once they are born what can ya do. keep 'em warm and feed 'em ;)
 
i think the most important data to glean from this thread is: try not to get one that is already knocking at death's door. i have two other dragon gobies that are doing great - the tricky bits (in my limited experience with them) are brackish water/good water quality, appropriate tankmates, and special feeding requirements. you can find some great articles online about them.
 
AquariaCentral.com