Mimic filefish

[Oakley]

Firstly i would like to say hello to all, i have not bee on these froums for a few months as i have been working away alot

Anyway onto my topic, not a nice one at that...

I have had "marge" a mimic filefish for about 2 months, and she has always been very active, hunting down her food, and i (when im there) and my wife has been feeding her by hand 2 times aday with different mixtures of food, including the seaweed they use for sushi. Water condtions have always been kept in order, infact i have so little nitrate ever in my tank i leads me to belive, the BSB and large amount of live rock i have is doing its job well.
At night "marge" would clamp onto on of the inlet pipes and sleep. And wake up as soon as the lights came on. Yesterday, however. she stayed clamped onto her sleeping place all day. i gave her a little nudge to wake her for some food and she did eat a very little bit, but then went back to sleep. being a worried parent i checked al the vital things, water,temp etc etc and was going to post here to ask you today if this was normal for a filefish. however when i woke this morning she was dead. :sad
It is a horrible feeling it is my first loss, and she was one of my fav fish. there has never been any kind of bullying from the other fish to her or visa versa. I dont know what i have done wrong, it is upsetting me thinking that it may e my fault.

Can anyone tell me the life expetancy of a mimic filefish and if the symptoms i have explained give you any clue as to why this happened?

Oh before i forget, she had no marks on her no spots, her eyes were clear and the day before had been acting normally.
Thanks in advance, sorry for such a long post.
Oakley

 

[Oakley]

oh sorry i forgot to say, i have a 100g tank and have 3 other fish that lived with "marge" A porcupine fish, a snoflake moray and a niger trigger (very friendly and like i said there has never been any fighting in my tank)

 

[MonoSebaelover]

Hmmm, not exactly sure what happened. That is sad however. I have a Mimic File in my 55g Reef Tank and it has been happy and thriving for well over 8 months. She/he (whatever it is) used to reside in the 209g tank but I have 3 triggs in there and have read that Triggs and Files should not be kept together due to the closeness in families. So the file got moved prior to the 3rd trigg going into the big tank. She is not near as happy in her smaller tank but she deals. Anyway, I have heard you shouldn't keep them together because of their simmilarity in family and because of the difference in temperment. Files are the docile put up the dorsal fin in times of trouble while the Trigg is the aggressive kill the opponent type. I don't know if this caused Marge's death or not, but the stress could have. What is water quality, salinity, and temp running at? Anyway, hope this helps and sorry for Marge's loss.

 

[Oakley]

Thanks mono,
Water quality: amonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate less than my test kit will show
phosphate trace
10% water change every 2 weeks
20% once a month
SG: 1.023 ( the exact same as the store i buy everything from)
Temp 25 C ( think that is about 77F ? )
RO/DI water ALWAYS used for changes/top ups

On the trigger/file fish thing, I do understand what you are saying, but the file fish always used to hang with the porky and, i have never seen the triger bother with anything in my tank, he just does his own thing, they are all hand fed so there is never a problem at feeding time either. sigh, oh well i will just have to get used to not having her there any more, even though she was small, she made such a difference in my tank.
One good thing (i guess) is the lfs i goto has given me a credit note for her, dont know why they did, but it was a very nice guesture.

Just gotta work out now what will live in there with the guys i have, any suggestions at all please?

Would a powder blue or an olive tang work ok ?