My ruby red dragonet is a little skinny? Is this normal?

Cantusaurus · Mar 19, 2021

Hi, so I have had my Ruby Red Dragonet for 3 months and it has always been eating and looks good, although it is a bit skinny. It is not deathly skinny or anything. I have not noticed any abnormal behavior from him either. I have a Fluval 32 gallon (long) tank. There are a lot of pods I have added into the tank before introducing the Dragonet, and I have a baby brine shrimp hatchery. He eats pods and live BBS with no issue, and frozen cyclopods, and seems to be starting to eat mysis and other frozen. I also use garlic and selcon with the frozen food. He is pretty small (about 1-1.25 inches), but is skinny. I don't think I see his spine or anything, but I am not 100% sure. If anyone can let me know for my peace of mind if you think he's ok, then that'd be great. There are still pods in the tank since there is plenty of porous rock. There are no aggressive fish either that bother him. I have 2 clowns, a blue/green chromi, and a Purple Firefish.

(Don't mind the shot glass there are some unattached Discosomas)

Pistondog · Mar 19, 2021

He looks OK, i have one and add new Pods monthly.
If he's eating mysis, that's super.

Cantusaurus · Mar 20, 2021

Pistondog said:
He looks OK, i have one and add new Pods monthly.
If he's eating mysis, that's super.

Yeah I think and am hoping he’s alright. He eats a little bit of mysis, and other frozen (other then Cyclopods which he was eats a lot of) and I enrich the food with selcon. I’m thinking of rehoming my cleaner shrimp since he always goes in to steal the frozen food from the dragonet, and corals at times. But I put a flake near the dragonet and he avoided it but then picked at it, and I was so happy but then the cleaner shrimp came out of nowhere and stole the food and the dragonet left so I’m not sure if he’ll go for and eat flakes again especially since he got scared off.

Cantusaurus · Mar 23, 2021

UPDATE: Dragonet still looks fine. I rehomed my cleaner shrimp since I feel every time I tried to target feed my dragonet he would stress him out a bit and steal some of the food. I had a lawnmower blenny not make it about 2 weeks ago due to internal issues (probably a worm), since he was always skinny for the 3 months I had him despite him eating tons.
So just to be sure that the dragonet continues to do well I am going to soak some frozen Cyclopods in Seachem MetroPlex and target feed him and I guess my other fish as well (they all look fat and healthy but it can't hurt). And hopefully if there is some sort of internal worm taking some of his food then that should hopefully be resolved. I have never tried this before so I hope I can do it properly.