New tank off to a bang!

[h4zelnuts]

New here, first post!

Have a 13.5 Fluval EVO at office up since July 2023. YWG, pink pistol, tailspot blenny, toadstool leather, zoas, clown, tuxedo urchin, stylophora. Slowly added to the tank over the course of a year in that order. Nov '23 blenny ended up having flukes. Dosed PraziPro, flukes cured. No issues (except a small bout with cyano, then hair algae) since. Decided these guys should get a bigger home. Purchased RS Max NANO G2 XL.

TBS package shipment #1(20lbs live sand, 20lbs live base rock) added Nov 23 '24
TBS package shipment #2(20lbs premium rock) added Dec 19 '24
Allowed tank to sit and level out with very slowly increasing light before brining any of the office fish home. Things also were delayed due to waiting until I was able to catch the mantis hitchhiker that came with the shipment.

Clown being the most friendly and docile of the bunch, he went home first on Feb 3rd. Took about 2-3 days for him to chill out and start getting his normal appetite (eat everything that goes into the tank). Currently, LRS Reef Frenzy in the morning and a couple New Life Spectrum Marine pellets in the evening. Usually also frozen mysis and seaweed extreme pellets in that rotation but that is still at the office for the YWG and pink pistol.

Next up was the blenny. He was brought home last week on Feb 10. Like the clown, about 2 days for normal appetite to return and back to his normal rock picking and grazing. Friday was at the LFS getting water tested and decided to grab a nice duncan. Saturday morning was a normal morning feed, clown and blenny eating no damage. Saturday afternoon (about 5 hours after feeding) I'm walking passed the tank and notice his right eye is super swollen around the retina and looks to be cloudy (unfortunately I didn't snap any pics)possibly some blood. I suspected a surprise bif from lurking crab? I planned to run to the office Sunday morning to grab some MelaFix. By Sunday morning his eye was gone! By sunday evening all of the excess tissue surrounding the socket had shed and by this morning basically all damaged tissue is gone and there is an empty socket... my poor Timmy!!! Crazy thing is the bugger actually came out of one of his hidey holes and ate some of the reef frenzy this morning! So there is all the back story, here is where we are at now.

Ph - 8
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 10ppm
Kh - 132ppm
Phosphate - .08
Calcium - 374ppm
Magnesium - 1429ppm

Aside from losing an eye in about 12 hours and no visible grazing and pecking returning yet, the blenny is acting somewhat normal. The clownfish did not eat this morning. Also, over the last couple of days I've noticed that the clownfish is constantly swimming around the top of the tank. He always has tended to hangout at the top at night (in work tank as well) but this morning having food floating around him didn't interrupt his laps. 1 pellet interrupted him but he immediately spit it out. Interestingly, while doing some recon Saturday night I notice that I have a nickel sized stone crab that I hadn't seen before. Aside from him, there is a quarter sized red clinging crab, some porcelain, a couple albino, a decorator and still a lurking pistol shrimp.

Does this sound like a parasitic thing? Is the clown current activity coincidental with the blenny incident? Could an injury from a crab cause this to happen? Is this gas bubble disease? My head is swimming, so some outside perspective would be much obliged!

 

[Tahoe61]

Well Dang!

That's a hard one. I would be inclined to think a predator or parasite came in on the new rock. It doesn't sounds like really sound like pop eye.
If it continues I would post an image of the infected fish in the disease section of the fourm.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Do you have pictures of the fish in question?

 

[h4zelnuts]

Thanks Tahoe. Yes, that's where my thoughts are at too.

Charlie was really chill and ate pellets again last night. Both fish are eating as of this morning, though Timmy's aim is a little off.. :disappointed-face:

Lights were still ramping up so these were the best I could get before heading off to work.

I'm still amazed at how rapidly his eye was injured, gone, and a cleaned out empty socket remaining.

My current course of action is to more rapidly evict the more aggressive crabs, like the stone, probably the albinos, and maybe the decorators. I'm now very hesitant to bring the YWG and pink pistol home until I can get that stone crab out at the very least. Would it be imperative to get the gulf pistol out too? I have yet to discover his whereabouts.

As far as parasites go, I would expect to see more signs from either fish right?

 

[unclejed]

I would leave everything alone. Why are you panicking? My Clown does the same behavior. He looks healthy. An anemone or hairy mushroom may be the ticket to give him some security, if he and the mushroom will host. Don't overthink things. Here is my one clown after mushrooms got established;

 

[h4zelnuts]

I would leave everything alone. Why are you panicking? My Clown does the same behavior. He looks healthy. An anemone or hairy mushroom may be the ticket to give him some security, if he and the mushroom will host. Don't overthink things. Here is my one clown after mushrooms got established;

For clarity, the images and concern are primarily with the tail-spot blenny and the rapid loss of his eye and (if parasitic in nature) secondarily the clownfish. I appreciate your comments and agree I am likely overthinking things. Beautiful hairy mushroom and toadstools you got there!