Is my yellow Goby OK?

[Kebabian]

He's sitting vertically in the bottom back corner of the tank... See picture. Anything to be concerned about?

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[Pife]

Is he swimming fine and eating? They do perch in weird positions.

[tomreefer]

can be depressed is this a new addition? You could try adding a pistol shrimp

[Kebabian]

Looks fine now.... I think it's just a new "habit".

[kurt_n]

You'll find they perch in all sorts of different directions. Looks normal and happy to me!

[CoralBeauty13]

mine would be all over the place. I always thought he was dead while he laid on his side to let the neon wrasse clean him and then when done move on. He would always be perched on the edge as yours then swim along to some-where else. As long as he is eating and moving, I do believe he would be ok.

[Kebabian]

Under actinics only, it looks like his color is fading. He's not eating much either.... Noticed these little spots too. Thoughts:

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[kurt_n]

I know yellow clown gobies can have some funky stuff go on with their mucous coats sometimes when they get stressed. I've seen this, and also heard about it from a couple folks at some of my more reliable local fish stores - folks that have a track record of speaking the truth!

What I've seen looks similar to what your fish is showing, but I've never seen it that extreme. That almost looks like ich, but can't say for sure. How long has it been in your tank, and did it spend any time in a quarantine tank before going into the display?

[Kebabian]

He was in the QT tank for two weeks and seemed fine.... Moved him to the display tank on Thursday.

[dkeller_nc]

That's almost definitely a case of ich. Two weeks in a QT isn't long enough to definitely say that it didn't have a case of ich - it takes at least 4 weeks, and preferably 6 weeks.

These are curable with hyposalinity (I've cured yellow clown gobies this way), but you will have to act fast. You will need to set your QT up, get him in it, and drop the specific gravity below 1.015 within a day or so. 1.015 isn't enough to cure him - you will have to go down to 1.009, but in my experience getting the specific gravity below 1.015 greatly reduces the chance that he will be overwhelmed by the second round of parasites and succumb.

Read up on hyposalinity in the Disease section of the forum - so long as you have a good, accurate refractometer, hyposalinity is a pretty easy method to use for ich.

[Kebabian]

It's back in the QT tank and I'm starting the hyposalinity treatment. Should I be concerned about the rest of my livestock?

[kurt_n]

It's back in the QT tank and I'm starting the hyposalinity treatment. Should I be concerned about the rest of my livestock?

Yes. What else do you have in the tank? If it was me - and this is just my opinion - I'd probably wait a bit and see if anyone else shows up with it.

Like dkeller, I've also done hypo on a yellow clown goby with success.

[Kebabian]

I've got two clowns, a blue sapphire damsel, a mandarin goby (that's a long story) and a clean up crew. Two zoos and a couple of mushrooms.

[dkeller_nc]

You'll need to remove all fish from the DT, put them in quarantine and treat them (all of them) with hyposalinity, tank transfer or copper. Your display tank will need to be fishless for 8-12 weeks to ensure that all of the ich parasites are gone.

Problem is, your mandarin may not survive being put into a bare QT unless it's been trained to take frozen and/or small pellet food. Most wild-caught mandarins don't survive very long unless they're in a pretty large tank with a lot of high-quality live rock, or their owner is willing to purchase live copepods to feed them with.