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LF advice dealing with unhappy Orchid Dottyback

jugato

jugato

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I picked up a pair of ORA Orchid Dottybacks on Saturday. One of the pair is doing really well. The rock lift in my tank makes the entire area under the rock one big cave, which he cruises around. He is very active, except he disappears at night somewhere I can't see him.

The other one does not appear to be doing well. She has been in the same corner of the tank almost constantly since Saturday. She is usually sideways, with her belly against the glass and her dorsal fin 'hooked' onto the rock so that she can stay in place without expending any energy.
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In the mornings before the lights come on she's actually just been laying on the sand, on her side, belly against the glass. I thought she was dead both mornings but she proved me wrong.

I have seen her occasionally swim normally and she doesn't appear to have any difficulty staying upright when she does. Nor is her swimming erratic when she chooses to swim around. This evening when I got home from work I fed them and I did finally see her eat a little thawed mysis, but she wasn't nearly as enthusiastic as her tankmate.

FWIW, I did my weekly water change Saturday morning before heading over to Neptune to get the fish. I use the NSW I get from them. I haven't done the full gamut of tests though I know that I should. Salinity is 1.024. My pH changes over the course of the day but is currently 8.2. Temp is 77.2. However, given that the other fish is not having any difficulties I'm assuming the problem isn't water params.

I haven't really seen any overt aggression from the other fish so I don't really suspect she's being bullied. When he comes near she doesn't swim away.

So, any guesses as to what's bothering her? Is she just taking longer to adjust to her new environment than the other one? Or does this sound like something more serious? I've never had any Dottybacks before so I'm not familiar with their behavior but this seems abnormal to me. What can I do to improve the chances that she'll pull through?

Thanks,
 
Dottybacks are normally very durable, hard to tell from the pic, but to me it looks like one of your fish has been beating the crap out of it, my guess would be the other dottyback.
 
The 2 dottybacks are the only fish in my tank. I was hoping they would pair up and provide lots of plankton for the tank.

I haven't seen much in the way of aggression while in my tank but I'm trying not to hover too much in case her seeing a big head through the glass raises her stress levels. I suspect they arrived from ORA a bit beaten up. Robert said 1 of the 4 he ordered didn't survive and I picked the 2 I have because the 3rd had a pretty badly torn up dorsal fin.

I turned the lights off for at least today thinking that would also help reduce her stress (and should also help with the cyano I'm fighting). Other than that I'm just waiting to see if she'll recover.
 
And when they sell breeding pairs, it's normally when they are old and unproductive. paring them yourself 9:10 ends up like the above.

I'm with Jeremy on the other one beating it. You can't watch the tank 24/7 and they will fight after lights out. In my tank that is when it all goes down. It's like "after school behind the backstop".
 
tuberider said:
ORA purges their fish for days before shipping, so many times there fish come in emaciated and hungry.
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Why do they do this? Doesn't this just increase the stress and mortality rate?

-Gregory
 
I would note purging timing is fish species and size dependant and all shippers worth their salt practice this. Small fish usually only need a day, same with your smaller herbivores.
 
I don't think this will surprise anyone but she died today while I was at work. Now I have to decide whether I'm going to eventually try to introduce any additional fish into the tank. I was planning on stopping at the pair of dottybacks but now he's just a single.
 
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