My fish arrived!

I ordered 20 cyp. leptosoma 'Utinta', 6 caudos, 6 gold occies, and one gobie (plus 4 Malawi fish for a local guy) from Dave's Rare Aquarium Fish Tuesday afternoon. They arrived via FedEx this morning.

All the cyps and the gobie are fine as are the Malawis. I only received 5 gold occies and one of the caudopunks arrived dead. The cyps, gobie and occies are all fine and have eaten. Of the caudos I can only see one and though a few pellets dropped right by him he's not eating. In fact I just looked and there's a pellet right under him. Not sure what's up with them. Maybe they need some more time to settle in.

I'm pretty happy so far though I am worried about the caudos. I hadn't read about them being a delicate species but they're definitely not acting like they're 100%.

Cheers, off to look at my fish some more.

congrats

Awesome Norm, great choices!!! Hope the caudo's come around.

That tank is going to be awesome-a little Tang community!

How are they doing this morning? Hope all is well.

Thanks all. I don't even look at the tanks until I get home from work so no clue how they did overnight. I had the lights off for a few hours last night during rehearsal and then turned them back on and saw at least 4 of the caudos. I fed some mysis shrimp & glass worms and they all ate like pigs. I glimpsed the caudos a few times and I'm pretty sure they ate so I'm optimistic about them.

I have to say that of all the new fish the gobie is my runaway favorite already. He's found himself a little cave to hide in and he darts in and out when a piece of food goes by. I tried and tried to get pics of him to no avail. I need a better camera than my iPhone. The flash is too close to the lens so there's no way I can use flash and there's no light in the cave where he's camped out. I will get him though.

Also interesting is the behavior of the other fish. The xenos are pretty much just going about their business, but the comps have finally decided that they're rock dwellers and are hanging close to the rocks for the most part. Three of the four larger conch shells I bought for them have fished staked out in them too now. Very cool stuff.

So far the cyps are hanging out about 10" above the shellies. I hope they get to where they'll swim around the tank a little bit more. Besides looking better it'll be easier to get food down to the multies because not much makes it past that cloud of cyps. hehehe If in a few days they still don't swim up higher I'll start thinking about drilling some more holes in my spraybar on the theory that it's too much current for them up there. But based on the movements of food and particles up there I really don't think there's too much current.

I have to say, so far, so good.

Pics !

Look at my other thread vman. Plenty there and video too.

Looks like 3 caudos are missing. I've never seen them since I put them in Thursday. And now I'm missing two of my 8 xenos and maybe one of the cyps. I count 19 most of the time but every once in a while come up with 20. LOL

So is it normal to lose fish like this? No bodies I can see anywhere, but with all the rocks that's not all that surprising. I just checked ammonia, nitrite and nitrate (0,0 and 10) so water quality shouldn't be an issue. I'm only using about 1/2 my normal mix of epsom salts and baking soda (I planned on bringing it up slowly over a month or so) compared to my other tanks) but even at that the KH is around 8 and pH nearly 8.0.

In the other tank, I've definitely seen only 4 of the 5 new gold occies, but the last one could easily be hiding in a shell when I try to count.

Just after I posted I saw the 5th Occie. One is relegated to the tank top though. I put some shells on the opposite side for him, but I'mthinking about putting him opposite the multies in the 125 now. Hmmm...

Norm, I hope the missing fish are just hiding well and will turn up. I've had that happen with tanks full of rockwork.

I have had fish disappeaar for weeks, and I was sure they were goners, and then have them turn up or find them when I moved rocks or something. With shellies I never know how many there are. I'm still not sure if I still have 3 hequi in the tank or 4.

Thanks ladies, I hope they turn up. I'm kind of resigned to the 3 caudos missing, but I've grown pretty attached to the xenos. There was one lone wolf early on, but he came out with the group every couple days for the first week or two. I've looked everywhere and have seen no bodies. And with all the current when I turn both UGJ pumps on (I generally just run one except for a couple minutes every day) I would think they'd come out if there were bodies.

Oh well, waiting is my worst thing. LOL

I do hope they turn up.
I got home to find my male ansogii GONE. He had been harrassing the female and I had moved him, I guess he jumped out and became a crispy dog treat. He was a pretty big fish to not leave any remains at all.

Oh bummer! Sorry to hear that J. I did find one partial rotted carcass this morning. Ah well.