The Frogfish Files - Page 11

Wee Man · #**251** 01/20/2004, 11:28 PM

pink lol best of luck with your roomates.

yeah i suggest getting something black in the tank, or encourage him to turn a different color, like orange red or yellow. boy im soo glad this thread has been going for such a duration of time finally a good place where froggers can get together and talk about frogs.

dave2184 · #**252** 01/20/2004, 11:28 PM

Are there any natural corals or sponges that are black?

Not that i know of.

BlennyBabe · #**253** 01/21/2004, 02:07 AM

There arent any corals that are black that are easy to take care of. sun polyps are but they require intense feedings and with the bio load of a frog, i wouldnt try it. You could get some black river stones to cover the bottom. They sell them in most garden stores or craft stores. They have them at my local plant nursery and at my pier one. people use them for decorating pots, fountains, or candles even. Good luck. My frog stayed black for about three months and he was just in a tank with liverock. I added caulerpa and now he is greenish yellow with pink tassle things.

Genetics · #**254** 01/21/2004, 08:27 AM

Blenny babe do you have a shot of your tank? I also have calerpa and some yellow sponges in the tank so I would forsee him changing into pink/green/yellow morph.

Fishy1 · #**255** 01/21/2004, 09:49 AM

I have a black background for Ollie and I added some black onxy rock that the LFS had. I had some black marbles on the sandbed but removed them when he started luring at them. Afraid he might try to eat one. My friend has yellow marbles in the bottom of her tank to encourage her frog to stay yellow. He never even looked at the marbles. So it could go either way. I've had Ollie for about 2 weeks now and no signs of changing his color. HTH

fishy1

BlennyBabe · #**256** 01/21/2004, 01:34 PM

Here is Cows tank before I added red background and marbles. This is the tank he changed from black to yellowish green in. It took him several months. I think the addition of caulerpa sparked the change.

Here it is after.

Ill see if I can find a picture of him halfway changed.

BlennyBabe · #**257** 01/21/2004, 01:39 PM

Here he is in August of 03. I got him in February of 03 and he was all black with white "fingertips"

http://reefs.org/phpBB2/download.php?id=11195

Wee Man · #**258** 01/21/2004, 05:10 PM

does anybody have suggestions for getting store bought krill to sink, should i just try keeping them in water for a while? everytime i get krill out it floats and i have to squish it to gett all the air out but by time i do that it has llost all of its "smells" and whatnot

Wee Man · #**259** 01/21/2004, 08:58 PM

i was sitting there admiring my frogfish when all of the sudden he lurched forward and suicidally started inflating himself. now he is so bloated i honestly think he is dead and if by some miracle he is not he probably will die. what couldve possessed him to do such a thing. i have ruled out copper poisoning because all other inverts in the tank are doing fine going about there happy lives. the only thing i can think of is that he got poked by a bristleworm or a hermit crab and puffed himslef up to the point where he couldnt breath. once again its one of those situations where one thing or another happens just the right way that my frogfish dies, but getting scared to death HONESTLY PEOPLE HAVE U EVER HEARD OF THAT.

what was most surprising to me is that all of this happened within a 10 minute period, he got scared and died within 10MINUTES. there were no other symptoms of anything wrong before this happened this is absolutely baffling to me as to how this happened so if anybody has any ides shout them out

Genetics · #**260** 01/21/2004, 11:07 PM

could your salinity have been off?

BlennyBabe · #**261** 01/22/2004, 12:36 AM

So sorry wee man. You have the worst luck with these fish. Im wondering if there might be something in your tank that is lethal to frogs. Its probably not copper since you know better than that. But maybe the LFS used copper in their tanks or even the holding facility. There are just so many variables that could be the source of all your losses. Maybe a sea cucumber or something died and has poisoned your tank so every frog dies. I dont know though since the inverts are fine. I have two HUGE bristle worms in the tank and they have never bothered my frog. I have seen them crawl over his fins a few times with no aparent problems. I dont think the bristles discharge unless they are agitated. I have moved some with my bare hands no problem, but if Im trying to get one out, they seem to shoot their bristles at me when i come in contact with them. I hope you figgure out a definate cause of death before you try another. Its such a shame to have such cool creatures die. My condolences.

Genetics · #**262** 01/22/2004, 01:22 AM

Wee man I am sorry you have had bad luck with these guys. I would wonder if your lfs might be taking them out of the water to transfer to the display tank?

Reefcherie · #**263** 01/22/2004, 06:23 AM

Wee Man,

I'm very sorry to hear of your loss - I know you were trying so hard to do everything just right for your little guy. The person I know of that knows the most about frogfish is Scott Michael. You may be able to contact him through the CoralRealm website (www.coralrealm.com). If you can describe to him in an eMAIL the exact circumstances leading up to the fish's death, perhaps he'll have some useful thoughts to share.

Two other sources of information might be posting right here on Reef Central but in the Fish Disease forum and the folks at WetWebMedia (www.wetwebmedia.com) also have a couple of people that seem to be knowledgeable about frogfish.

Cheri

Fishy1 · #**264** 01/22/2004, 09:52 AM

So sorry, Wee Man

In the course of acquiring healthy specimans I have lost 2 frogfish to disease/unknown causes and one to overeating. It's never very pleasant to see these little guys die......The only thing I've ever read about the inflation of frogfishes indicated it was used to avoid being eaten by a preditor or to aid in moving from one reef to another as they are poor swimmers. The info is sort of contradictory as we are told never to lift them out of water, yet they ingest air on purpose to travel sometimes! Had you overfed him at all? There is a "bloat/float that sets in after ingesting too much food that ends in death......but this happens within hours, not minutes......again I'm really sorry about your loss......

Fishy1

Wee Man · #**265** 01/22/2004, 10:13 PM

no all params are fine. however i think there is something thats not agreeing with the frogfish in my tank because when he bloated up it was very peculiar. when he lurched forward his lure started skipping around in front of him and he cureld up his tail to the point where it was touching his face. by then i was panicked bcuz didnt know what to do i didnt think there was anything i COULD do after he finished his death curl he froze in position and stood up on his nose with his arms straight out to each side after ten seconds of that he lowered himself to tthe ground and started inhaling water. and just when i thought he couldnt inhale anymore he inhaled more he was now about 3 times his noraml size within about 3-4 minutes. after that i observed him trying to get a foot on the ground but his gluttonous stomach wouldnt let him. i am very familiar with the inflate scare tactic, it is used by other animamls like frogs and snakes and this is what has lead me to belive something poked him from behind and scared him.
after awhile of mindlessly flailing his arms he finally got ahold of a rock , and after that i was deeply reassured that within an hour he would deflate himself and live on to have a healthy life. but i noticed hi eyeballs sucking into his head as a human mioght close there eyes to avoid a bright light. within 20 seconds of this appening he darted upwards and with one last desperate shoot at life he swam to the back of te tank furiously where he then discontinued all actions and movement including breathing.

he was then dead. i have NEVER EVER heard of this kinda thinghappening or anything similar to it in anyother fish. i mean one moment he was sitting there happy and healthy 6-10 minutes later he was dead.

sorry i couldnt get any pictures it wasnt exactly the first thing on my mind but i know it would have helped understande exactly how chaotic this time frame was. but just so you understand exactly how bloated he was, the pressure in his stomach was soo great that post-mortum his body deflated alot of the water.

pne thing i can think of is yesterday morning way before anyof this happened i noticed an isopod in the tank. i believe some of them are almost vampyric and will burrow into fish skin in order to suck some blood. which is why im holding him so i can do an autopsy and look for anysuspicious markings or alien features.

as to feeding there is no way he was overfed he ate about one small glass shrimp a day. and even if i did overfeed him i dont think he would have bloated up as fast as he did. as to sea cukes i only have one in the tank and im looking at him right now still kicking. as to the lfs they had him for about a month before i bought him. as to air i meade sure he never ever came in contact with it, at the lfs or in my house.

this has leqad me to believe that there is something in my aquarium causing these problems.

BTW what is a good water temp for frogfish i kept it at 76-77 degrees.

as to continuing my frogfish journeys...im not givin up yet. i think im going to do what Fishy1 did, i wanna buy a giant frogfish and put him in my 92 gallon. i would feel more comfortable feeding him larger specimens (currently breeding some mollies) and it gives me the impression bthat a larger fish could withstand more of whatever these problem are that are happening. also the problems arent happening in my 92 so if im gonna get a frogfis for it it might as well be a 14 incher lol.

any thank you for your condolences and time i took from you as you read this long rather dran out post.

if any of these symptoms sound familiar please tell me.

Fishy1 · #**266** 01/23/2004, 12:14 AM

Never, ever, heard of such a thing, WeeMan. I'm just glad you took the time to document what happened for our files.......pretty scary what happened to him and so quickly! I must agree, sounds like something in that tank really got to him......as for the proper temperature, I run my tank at 78 to79 degrees. Don't think it makes all that much differerce as long as there isn't too much fluctuation. I just read that the giants are prone to bacterial infections and that all params should be kept as constant as possible.......so far, my guy is doing well, but what happened to you really freaks me out! Good luck with and in finding your new froggie

Fishy1

mantisshrimp · #**267** 01/23/2004, 04:41 PM

I got some pics of my frogfish.

BlennyBabe · #**268** 01/23/2004, 07:24 PM

Post the please? Maybe it will cheer wee man up a little.

BlennyBabe · #**269** 01/23/2004, 07:25 PM

Wee Man, I was thinking about your frogfish. Maybe the ghost shrimp were from water that had something in it. I doubt copper because it would kill them, but maybe there is something else. I would try to get a sample of the water where they are from and test it for everything you can.

kidzatheart · #**270** 01/24/2004, 02:55 AM

Hello everyone. I think this thread is just wonderful. I have one frogfish that i have had a short time. I dont know what type he is. I am hoping he is the type that will change colors. When i bought him from a LFS i explained to them what i had in my 80 gallon tank where he was going. I have a snowflake eel, a blue hippo tang and a racoon butterfly. I told them the size of my fish and they told me that the frogfish would not be able to eat my fish. Boy were they WRONG! The next morning after we put him into the tank my raccoon butterfly was gone. Boy was i made. I would of rather him ate the blue hippo. It took forever to get my raccoon to eat. After he did that i put him into a time out box while i prepared a 10 gallon all for him alone. We put him into the 10 gallon and i guess i fed him a fish to big. One morning i woke up and he had turned grey with red dots and was laying on his side. He had thrown up the fish. We thought he was dead but figured we would try and save him by putting him back into the time out box into the 80 just to see if he would get better. While we were dripping him, we were conviced he was dead. I was upset because we were about to flush my $90.00 frogfish. So when he looked dead we got desparate and just tossed him into the 80 gallon without waiting for him to drip. Luckly he is ok now and doing great. He will be transferred back into his 10 gallon home this weekend. I want to put some color in his tank to see if he will change colors. He is a brown color now with black dots and white paws. He reminds me of a rock so we named him Rocky. I will try and post some pics of him. If i can not figure it out i will have my husband do it sometime tonight (since it is almost 3am now).

kidzatheart · #**271** 01/24/2004, 02:56 AM

Here is another pic of Rocky

kidzatheart · #**272** 01/24/2004, 02:58 AM

Pic 3 of 4 of Rocky

kidzatheart · #**273** 01/24/2004, 02:59 AM

Last one of my Rocky

Genetics · #**274** 01/24/2004, 03:25 AM

Rocky looks like my fish(Bowsah the Fuggly Pictus) but mine is black. I would say he is probably an A. pictus. If you do a brief search on google you should better find the species.

mantisshrimp · #**275** 01/24/2004, 03:05 PM

pics: