Bumblebee help!

[ihatter]

Hey everyone! Well my tank is going great, I do water changes all the time, have a protein skimmer and 50 pounds of LR in a 55 gallon tank. In there I have a bumble bee grouper, volitan lion fish, panther grouper and a picasso trigger fish.

The picasso is so funny, he has a favorite power head that he surfs. He goes under the current and then when hes in the right spot shoots himself into the powerhead, then he dives and does the whole thing back over again.

Errghh.. This baby volitan will not eat frozen food, I got him to eat krill 2x, but both times it seemed that the chunk of krill was too big for him.. now I think he wont eat it because he is scared he can't swallow it. He hasn't eaten for almost... 6 days now, should I give him live? And if so is it ok if I feed him live at night so that the other fish will be asleep?

The Bumblebee is the real problem. His normal behavior is to hide in these 2 little rock things he likes. He swims when all the lights are off but for the most part he rests on rocks and the sand. Two questions about him, sometimes, and this is only sometimes I see him with some like algae stuff on him, like little pieces of it that stick on, as well as sand, this little algae stuff looks like the stuff on all the rocks, is it possible that there is just a little that got stuck on him or could it be some kind of disease? Also today I came to checkout the tank and he was on top of the powerhead laying motionless, I thought that for sure he was dead. Then I looked again, and he was breathing! He noticed me and swam back down to his normal rock spot! is this unusual? I could have sworn that part of him was out of the water! It really scared me.

Thanks everyone!

[jwm2k3]

My bumblebee produces LOTS of body slime and it constantly sloughs off. When the sand gets kicked up it sticks to him.
I too, thought it may be somthing wrong, maybe brooklynella, but I have had this fish for almost a year and there have been no new fish added and no disease in this tank at all.

I think this species just makes lots of mucus/slime coat.....

[ihatter]

Thats what I had figured, thanks for the response

[finntyla]

Sorry to burst your bubble kid but your tank is way too small.

Picasso,grouper,volitans,panther in a 55 ???????

Prepare yourself,your gonna get hit.

[ihatter]

errghh.... there going into a 300 at the end of 6 months, and the bumble bee is going into a 200,000...

[Mad Scientist]

Originally posted by ihatter
errghh.... there going into a 300 at the end of 6 months, and the bumble bee is going into a 200,000...

I'd try to speed that up, you're going to have problems before then.

[pisces77]

If you must use live food for the lionfish, try Ghost Shrimp (gut load them for better nutrition). They are much cleaner than feederfish.

[pisces77]

If you must use live food for the lionfish, try Ghost Shrimp (gut load them for better nutrition). They are much cleaner than feederfish.

[bobbyp]

what 200,000???????

[ihatter]

Yes, 200,000 gallons

[redpaulhus]

I'm assuming that's the Giant Ocean Tank at the New England Aquarium ?
Have you already got a confirmation from them ? My understanding was that they were pretty full up and money is pretty tight right now...