Lost my fourth Royal Gramma in as many years - why?

[Reef.]

I’m is not a great eater, if you have a Royal Gramma what does it eat?

 

[theMeat]

Thing they tend to be aggressive because the are afraid. Which makes them not come out to eat enough

 

[Reef.]

Thing they tend to be aggressive because the are afraid. Which makes them not come out to eat enough

weird as mine swim happily around the tank for the first few days, now he hardly ever comes out. For eating the odd bit and moving from one cave to another.

 

[theMeat]

weird as mine swim happily around the tank for the first few days, now he hardly ever comes out. For eating the odd bit and moving from one cave to another.

Yeah, once she staked her claim...

 

[Zionas]

What I suspect is these fish really need a peaceful environment to thrive. That means lots of caves and overhangs, and an absence of large / overly active / aggressive fish.

 

[jtf74]

I love the color of the Royal Gramma and I really want to keep one. But I seem to have no luck with them. My fourth one just passed. Two days ago I observed he had a bad case of tail rot, now he is gone. The lifespan of my Grammas in my 75 gallon tank have been:

1. Twelve months
2. One day
3. Six months
4. Eight months

Any idea why? Do they require a special food I don't feed them? Or some unusual water parameters? I feed Frozen Reef Frenzy once per day. Also nori, but they don't seem to eat that.

My other fish are: Coral Beauty Angel, Diamond Goby, Hippo Tang, two Clownfish, Target Spot Mandarin Goby, Yellow Tang, Springer Dottyback

Inverts: Hermit crabs, snails, Coral Banded Shrimp, Sand Sifting Sea Star

I got my gramma in 2014 as a full grown adult from a person who had been neglecting his tank and sold to me. I figure its got to be 8 or 9 years old at least. It eats just about any frozen- omnivore, mysis, brine, etc. Loves black worms too. My fish include bicolor angel, hippo tang, copperband, maroon clowns, lemon chromis, and I had a yellow tang so similar to your livestock. I would suspect the dottyback but none of the others. Maybe just coincidental bad luck. These are usually not that tough to keep.

 

[Reef.]

I got my gramma in 2014 as a full grown adult from a person who had been neglecting his tank and sold to me. I figure its got to be 8 or 9 years old at least. It eats just about any frozen- omnivore, mysis, brine, etc. Loves black worms too. My fish include bicolor angel, hippo tang, copperband, maroon clowns, lemon chromis, and I had a yellow tang so similar to your livestock. I would suspect the dottyback but none of the others. Maybe just coincidental bad luck. These are usually not that tough to keep.

Does he hide a lot or swim around?

 

[jtf74]

He swims most of the time. Only hides occasionally for a minute at most. He actually probably cover more length in a day than my hippo tang.

 

[OrionN]

I keep harem, seven of them, of Royal Gramma in my 420 for many years. No problem. They even spawned in my tank. They only eat frozen and life food. Rarely if ever bite on flakes or pellets.

 

[Reef.]

I keep harem, seven of them, of Royal Gramma in my 420 for many years. No problem. They even spawned in my tank. They only eat frozen and life food. Rarely if ever bite on flakes or pellets.

what frozen do they eat? Mine is very picky so is skinny, he near enough only eats octopus and brine shrimp....was just Googling 'life food' I now guess that was a typo and was meant to say Live food ;Shamefullyembarrased

 

[OrionN]

Live food, Frozen mysis. I also feed a mixture of blended fish, shrimps mussel, fish eggs and the like. (any frozen/fresh sea food I can get my hand on)

 

[Reef.]

Live food, Frozen mysis. I also feed a mixture of blended fish, shrimps mussel, fish eggs and the like. (any frozen/fresh sea food I can get my hand on)

thanks for the reply, wow your gramma eats all that!

I feed all of those, I guess mine is just very picky then.

 

[MileHighSeaLevel]

thanks for the reply, wow your gramma eats all that!

I feed all of those, I guess mine is just very picky then.

Mine seem to like brine shrimp and fish eggs. Eats fish eggs like pac-man.

 

[happyhourhero]

Mine is captive bred but eats lrs and cyclops

 

[Saltyanimals]

Hey @OrionN any advice in adding a small harem of 4-6 to a 180 besides adding all at once and get them smaller/same size?

I’m ordering captive bred ones and concerned they’re too small for a larger system with established fish to just drop in. They’re currently eating dry food per biota, but I’m concerned they will struggle competing for food. And you have harem in a even larger system.

 

[joec]

double post

 

[joec]

I've had two in row that lasted a year each and then mystery died, No sign of visible disease at any point, They each started to hide a then stopped eating slowly over weeks and hid until euthanized . I'm trying to figure out why?

I too have a 5 year old bulletproof 3.5" Timor wrasse in a 3 foot tank and she is active and aggressive eater. Both grammas were always nervous about the Timor but the Timor is very peaceful, no bullying. I'm starting yo think just the high activity of the wrasse stressed the grammas out over time and eventually they died. My experience seems to concur with some the other posters here that grammas may not do well long term with high energy larger fish unless in a large tank perhaps

 

[Saltyanimals]

How long were they in the tank before dying? Sounds like stress or bullying causing them to go in hiding. My past ones really held their ground to even bigger fish. Fearless little fish.

I dropped in 4 recently at the same time from biota. 2 dies fairly quickly but they were tiny. IMHO were too small to be sold. The other two have settled in and I feed separate sides of the tank so they get their share while they grow a bit to complete with the bigger fish.

 

[EntitledSushi]

Wow, I started this thread almost a year ago. It has lasted longer than my Royal Grammas.

It seems that some peaceful fish don’t do well in my tank. In addition to the Grammas, I have lost two Red Anthias and two Banggai Cardinals. Everything else seems fine, including some peaceful ground dwellers.

Though I haven’t seen overt aggression, it may be these fish are just stressed out by the bigger, faster ones. If I were making a fish compatibility chart, I would change these to Caution in the presence of bigger fish.

 

[egwich]

My Gramma is on his fourth year. He’s my second oldest fish in this system. Get live rock that has big holes in it - they love that. It also helps when the Gramma is one of the first entered into a tank as he’s already established. They can be prone to be picked on if they’re not one of the OGs.