Reef Discussion

My Chromis Are Miserable
Two days ago I had 3 little blue-green chromis delivered. They were a bit shell-shocked at first, but I thought they'd be happy by now. They are about 1 1/2" (4cm) body length and seem to have got their colour back, but all the do is sit in mid-water being mean to each other. The smallest has done some more exploring. This morning they were all up at the top despite heavy aeration, and I did a partial water change which has brought them back to mid-water. The tank already has 3 little Indo-Pacific sergeants and 3 blennies, all off whom are happy as larry doing what happy fishies do, though one of my shrimp was distressed before the water change (ok now).

They are eating a little, but rejecting most, of the frozen marine mix and flake food I normally feed the others on, and ignored the sinking pellets I just tried. They aren't really foraging, just sitting.

Any thoughts?

PS I have a brown hair algae problem I'm working on, just treated with Dr Tim's de-nitrate&phosphate, which only arrived today.
 

slin1977

Member
Jul 13, 2011
3,476
1,661
Sydney
Sorry to hear the chromis are not swimming nicely for you.
I have no advice regarding your lot but I have some ideas to throw in the ring.
Perhaps they are very green from the reef, perhaps fresh imports that have been through a rough quarantine and freshly shipped to you.
Given time things will improve is all I can add.
I have loved keeping chromis... I think they are fantastic, when I kept them I made sure they were all the same size and always got the smallest ones possible as a group. Juvies I assumed were less prone to the known bickering that I saw when having adults. Many aquarists including myself have ended up with 1 long term survivor in smaller tanks say up to 4 foot.
 
They are starting to eat pellets, and seem to be settling. One has a couple of missing scales which I am watching closely -- so far no sign of infection. They are all close in size, and fairly young.
 
Don't expect too much from Chromis... They are known to drop off one after the other. They are a constant feeder and most people ive known do not feed that often so they end up loosing one after the other.
 
Don't expect too much from Chromis... They are known to drop off one after the other. They are a constant feeder and most people ive known do not feed that often so they end up loosing one after the other.
Sigh. I'm feeding 3 times a day. One is looking quite ill, inflammation around the anus. If no better tomorrow I'll have it out and try a dab of betadine.