My BIGGEST Mistake in Reef Keeping | Blue Reef Tank 

I am so sorry; so kind of you to give him a chance, at least he was with someone who cared about him. I hope peanut is doing well. Any updates?

Oh no!! So sorry, Peanut you can do it! Hope Peanut can make it through! That’s really heartbreaking! It’s interesting through because the target was completely fine for a while until a couple days after. Poor them. I wish you all the best with Peanut!! ❤️🙏🏻🙏🏻

Sorry for your loss man, its hard to deal with sometimes. You can do everything in your power but sometimes mother nature wins in the worst ways. When I lost my first clownfish it felt like losing one of my dogs.

Heartbreaking, don't be too hard on yourself it was kind to try to rescue male mandarin. Hope peanut makes it through, I am sure she has a fighting chance.

I went fallow and am still in a fallow period after bringing home just one fish. I had mandarins too... one flameback Pygmy Angel infected my entire tank. At first my other fish were fine... but then not even a week or two later all died. At first I didn’t know what to do since I was really new and my dad was into salt fish keeping as well and he’d never had this problem over a course of years.. so I went and tried to get new fish and a new mandarin. It took exactly 3 days to see the new fish have the same problem. One took around 2 weeks and then went out tragically. It only takes one fish to introduce parasites, internal and external. You mentioned that you get your fish from a good LFS, where they keep it for you for about two weeks to make sure they’re healthy or not... I hate to break it to you but I have a fish store like that too. They held my parasitic Angel for 2 weeks, and it had no problems, looked amazingly healthy and as soon as I introduced it, it spread that parasite. Next thing I knew was all my fish were dying, my two mandarins- gone. Like I said, I tried getting another since I didn’t really know what was wrong (oblivion sadly), and it died 3 days later from being introduced into the infected water. I have a feeling your tank now has parasites and sadly, if it hasn’t already, it may spread to the other fish. I would really consider and recommend qt every single fish in that tank ASAP. Keep them in a quarantine tank for 76 days. It’s the standard. My LFS even said to do 200 days, but I think that’s a bit much. My LFS has held fish for me for two weeks and at the beginning I had no problems.. only takes one. My lesson learned is that even when they hold them and monitor them for two weeks, I still will quarantine every fish for at least 30 days. Copper medications aren’t safe for mandarins. I would highly recommend a medication without copper or formaldehyde’s such as “Paraguard” by Seachem. ParaGuard will be safe for qt mandarins every day. It’s a medication that must be doses everyday, but much safer and on the bottle it recommends for new fish to make sure. Also: if you notice while in the quarantine tank that the fish has internal parasites, use “metroplex” by seachem to dose the water. Metroplex IS reef safe. You can medicate food with it as well as long as you use equal parts of what I believe is called “focus” by seachem. Metroplex must be bonded with focus to be used in medicated foods. You can neutralize the ParaGuard by putting in carbon, however Paraguard is NOT reef safe! Not sure if you can use metroplex and Paraguard at the same time, but if you plan to use metroplex at around the same time, I’d say to neutralize the Paraguard for a day or two then water change, and dose metroplex and then feed metroplex as well. Best of luck to you and peanut! Peanut was doing amazing too 😭☹️🥺 I’m sorry this happened, it’s definitely heartbreaking when especially losing a beloved mandarin. Hopefully peanut will pull through! Please please pleaseeee quarantine everything! You may need to qt all your fish out of the display then go fallow to ensure there are no parasites.

Tough break... usually mandarins have a super thick slime coat (when healthy) and are much less likely than other fish to carry disease. It could be a variety of diseases that infect the gills (ich, velvet, etc) since their slime coat is so thick you likely won’t see many white spots on them. Most likely it would show on the fins if you did.

Great video!

Also get a qt tank most Stores keep hypo salinity and run Cooper in fish only sale tanks which keeps any parasites dormant until that salinity goes up in your reef tank or Fowlr and then surprise.

The "Biggest" mistake is sadly not quarantining your new arrival. It's a painful lesson most of us learn sooner or later. And it's cumbersome process to implement. But that was the mistake. But, take it as that: a painful lesson. Learn from it and go forth providing even better care in the future. We all have set backs, we all stumble. The most important thing is taking our next step. It was a lovely video production despite the sad topic. Best of luck to you and your Dragonet.

Nooo!! I feel your pain

Did you ever find out the cause of the heavy breathing? My mandarin had the same issue, all of a sudden one day found her gasping at bottom of tank, not moving and not eating. Rang my LFS, and he said any dip treatments would probably push her over the edge. So I decided not to treat her and observed for the next few days. After a few days, she started eating again. But still breathing heavier than normal. A few weeks have passed now, and she seems to have recovered. But still think she's suffering from something as her breathing is faster than when I first got her.

This has to be one of the shittest parts of the hobby. Credit for documenting it tho. U can do everything right and in your power but sometimes it just isn't enough. No matter the price of a single fish cheap or expensive it still sucks when u try all the methods and treatments available and none of them work 😓😪

Sorry man, we learn from this stuff though. It’s a tough hobby! I’m only buying captive bred livestock from now on, starting everything from square one ☝🏼

they say that these fish need an old aquarium, where they can find live food that they can hunt. The size of the aquarium probably also matters.

I hope that Peanut is okay! The slime coat of mandarins (like wrasses) makes them a Typhoid Mary. You're better off not purchasing these sick mandarin. When they look starved like that, they rarely survive and purchasing them encourages your fish store to keep stocking fish that they cannot care for.

Subbed following along to see how it goes, hope all turns out well.

Whatever the other mandarin had is in the main display. This is why I don’t really add anymore. I feel your pain.

Cmon peanut survive! Today i found my cleaner shrimp running around the tank with my clown goby who is struggling really badly, i hope we can both make it through these bad times...

NOOO this is so sad im so sorry about what happend

hope peanut gets well and i hope u get a mate for peanut but quarantine him for a week

BTW, one should try to establish copepods in the tank before keeping these fish

Poor peanut! Hope she gets well. What are the worms all in the sand? Super creepy.

Fresh water dip that long is not ideal. It’s only really a good idea to test for flukes as the flukes will expel out of the gills. Then you know to treat for flukes. If nothing happens in 20 seconds put it back in salt

🙏🏾

I hope you're able to cure the other one!

Where do you get those glass jars?

I think one of the biggest mistake in the hobby is not buying a quarantine tank. People should do that while buying their first aquarium, it's the only way to avoid killing all your fish by introducing a disease/parasite. I hope she'll be fine 🤞

Freshwater dip requires also the same pH or you will shock them

Please keep us updated on Peanut :(

Where do u get your lobster eggs from

r.i.p dragonet

This is so sad to watch. This is why we qt everything

This is so sad :(

😢.

Never dip a dragonet or gobies. They aint that type of fish. Hard to watch ill informed LFS practices. Not saying my knowledge is isnt littered with a degree of death and destruction lol, but when I stated Julian Sprung hadn't even published yet 🤣🤣🤣

😥

Way to much stress from catching them boxing them freshwater bath etc... i dont think they had nothing they looked fine expect for the spotted one , next time let it ride try not to play doctor to much

dont add fish when the old tank is running for long. I got lesson, not add too much fish and add fish later

😔

why we always always always quarintine

They eat live copepods

Why

You made several mistakes here - You put to different kind of mandarin together - You should have quarantine the fish, it was already weak and therefor It could easily catch a disease (the sickness could be already in your tank prior) - When it went bad you shouldn't have put it in your tank

You messed with this fish and stressed it out making it more sick

This is not one video to add.Is ok if you have olso solution to your fish why died

Brine are too fast after 3 days they need copepods I have one that's been in my tank for 3 years they feed 24/ 7and no need to put s video on of your fish dieing no one want see that

How about you stop buying fish that are better off in the ocean. Spend a little extra and buy captive bread mandarins