Urchin clingfish and dwarf sole quarantine recommendations

[christinna77]

Hello fish medics!
I'm about to place an order for these two fish I rarely ever see in stock or talked about in the hobby, so I've got some questions on their potential quarantine procedure:

- Urchin Clingfish (Diademichthys lineatus)

- Dwarf Sole (Aseraggodes ??)

I see both these fish are scaleless and I've heard they generally don't tolerate copper. Should I just go for a prolonged observation? Thank you!

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hello fish medics!
I'm about to place an order for these two fish I rarely ever see in stock or talked about in the hobby, so I've got some questions on their potential quarantine procedure:

- Urchin Clingfish (Diademichthys lineatus)

- Dwarf Sole (Aseraggodes ??)

I see both these fish are scaleless and I've heard they generally don't tolerate copper. Should I just go for a prolonged observation? Thank you!

I’ve worked with various soles, they are fine with Coppersafe.

I’ve only had one of those clingfish and it died soon after arrival, so I don’t know about those.

 

[christinna77]

Hello fish medics!
I'm about to place an order for these two fish I rarely ever see in stock or talked about in the hobby, so I've got some questions on their potential quarantine procedure:

- Urchin Clingfish (Diademichthys lineatus)

- Dwarf Sole (Aseraggodes ??)

I see both these fish are scaleless and I've heard they generally don't tolerate copper. Should I just go for a prolonged observation? Thank you!

I’ve worked with various soles, they are fine with Coppersafe.

I’ve only had one of those clingfish and it died soon after arrival, so I don’t know about those.

Thank you Jay! The store said both were doing well and eating, so fingers crossed.

 

[CaptainScuba]

Hello fish medics!
I'm about to place an order for these two fish I rarely ever see in stock or talked about in the hobby, so I've got some questions on their potential quarantine procedure:

- Urchin Clingfish (Diademichthys lineatus)

- Dwarf Sole (Aseraggodes ??)

I see both these fish are scaleless and I've heard they generally don't tolerate copper. Should I just go for a prolonged observation? Thank you!

My LFS in Palm Beach, FL recently had a batch of the urchin clingfish in store. The shop is called Tanknicians - it’s a full quarantine store. The owner has a wealth of knowledge about fish disease & prevention. I know he has a YouTube channel and an instagram page that he frequents. It’d be worth reaching out to ask him what quarantine procedures he followed with the clingfish. I know he wouldn’t sell any fish that he wouldn’t consider disease / pest free after a thorough quarantine & observation period. And he always seems happy to share his knowledge.

 

[christinna77]

My LFS in Palm Beach, FL recently had a batch of the urchin clingfish in store. The shop is called Tanknicians - it’s a full quarantine store. The owner has a wealth of knowledge about fish disease & prevention. I know he has a YouTube channel and an instagram page that he frequents. It’d be worth reaching out to ask him what quarantine procedures he followed with the clingfish. I know he wouldn’t sell any fish that he wouldn’t consider disease / pest free after a thorough quarantine & observation period. And he always seems happy to share his knowledge.

Thank you very much for the recommendation, I'll get in touch with them!

 

[Kasrift]

Hello fish medics!
I'm about to place an order for these two fish I rarely ever see in stock or talked about in the hobby, so I've got some questions on their potential quarantine procedure:

- Urchin Clingfish (Diademichthys lineatus)

- Dwarf Sole (Aseraggodes ??)

I see both these fish are scaleless and I've heard they generally don't tolerate copper. Should I just go for a prolonged observation? Thank you!

I'd bet you are getting the clingfish from Harry's.

I just did hybrid tank transfer for mine. It was easy peasy. I put in fresh hatched brine shrimp and some tig pods I dosed and just left it with some media from my tank. Did two extra transfers, since I typically do to be safe. It ate super well. I put it in a suction cup acclimation box in my big tank and had intended to keep it there until I got a quarantined urchin, and then disaster struck where the box fell while I was away from the house. I came home and it was in the sand and I haven't seen it since. I still figure that if I throw an urchin in there it might find it, otherwise it is hiding well in the rockwork for now as I can't find it, even when I look at night or look in the sump.

 

[Kasrift]

My LFS in Palm Beach, FL recently had a batch of the urchin clingfish in store. The shop is called Tanknicians - it’s a full quarantine store. The owner has a wealth of knowledge about fish disease & prevention. I know he has a YouTube channel and an instagram page that he frequents. It’d be worth reaching out to ask him what quarantine procedures he followed with the clingfish. I know he wouldn’t sell any fish that he wouldn’t consider disease / pest free after a thorough quarantine & observation period. And he always seems happy to share his knowledge.

Super knowledgable, I reached out to them when they had posted pics on instagram of it. I got mine from my LFS and quarantined myself. If Tankicians shipped, I'd love to buy from them.

 

[christinna77]

I'd bet you are getting the clingfish from Harry's.

I just did hybrid tank transfer for mine. It was easy peasy. I put in fresh hatched brine shrimp and some tig pods I dosed and just left it with some media from my tank. Did two extra transfers, since I typically do to be safe. It ate super well. I put it in a suction cup acclimation box in my big tank and had intended to keep it there until I got a quarantined urchin, and then disaster struck where the box fell while I was away from the house. I came home and it was in the sand and I haven't seen it since. I still figure that if I throw an urchin in there it might find it, otherwise it is hiding well in the rockwork for now as I can't find it, even when I look at night or look in the sump.

I actually ordered mine from Concept Aquariums, I'm in Canada!

I'm not really a fan of TTM personally. I think the handling can stress the fish out too much and it doesn't catch things like flukes. I'm hoping I'll be able to run chelated copper on both of them - I'm thinking of doing 2.25 ppm for like 2 weeks instead of the regular 4, with a transfer to my observation tank after. Prazi/GC should be tolerated by both I believe. I'm curious how Tankicians approached it too, though, so I hope they get back to me.

I'm actually not planning to get an urchin for mine. I already have a tuxedo and I feel like a longspine would wreck my tank lol. For now I think I'm going to try a 3D printed one instead and see if that helps it feel secure. From what I've read they luckily don't seem to be necessary. The store owner told me there's an urchin in the tank with the clingfish, but he's unsure if it's being hosted in the first place.

I'm really sorry to hear about the box failing. I hope your clingfish is okay and just hiding somewhere safe. They're such interesting little fish!

 

[Kasrift]

I actually ordered mine from Concept Aquariums, I'm in Canada!

I'm not really a fan of TTM personally. I think the handling can stress the fish out too much and it doesn't catch things like flukes. I'm hoping I'll be able to run chelated copper on both of them - I'm thinking of doing 2.25 ppm for like 2 weeks instead of the regular 4, with a transfer to my observation tank after. Prazi/GC should be tolerated by both I believe. I'm curious how Tankicians approached it too, though, so I hope they get back to me.

I'm actually not planning to get an urchin for mine. I already have a tuxedo and I feel like a longspine would wreck my tank lol. For now I think I'm going to try a 3D printed one instead and see if that helps it feel secure. From what I've read they luckily don't seem to be necessary. The store owner told me there's an urchin in the tank with the clingfish, but he's unsure if it's being hosted in the first place.

I'm really sorry to hear about the box failing. I hope your clingfish is okay and just hiding somewhere safe. They're such interesting little fish!

Gotcha, another place here in the US had them in stock, they are pretty rare.

My two cents on it is that hybrid TTM should take care of flukes. Secondly, these things have tiny mouths, like smaller than my pipefish.

That being the case, they need pod sized foods. I tried some frozen baby brine, some Reef Nutrition oyster feast, frozen daphnia, etc and it didn't care for those. They have a symbiotic relationship with urchins where they will eat their feet, but "ride" them for safety. From what I've read they also eat small hermit's eggs. Because of the need for some live food, I think copper will be hard.

I also made an assumption that being such tiny fish and having a heavy slime coat it is probably resistant (not immune) to things like a mandarin. They have a heavy slime coat to help protect them from the urchin spines.

 

[Kasrift]

Mine was eating in the bag during acclimation. You can see the pods moving in this video and it "striking" as it ate, very similar to a pipefish. I culture my own tig pods, so that made it easy.

 

[christinna77]

I actually ordered mine from Concept Aquariums, I'm in Canada!

I'm not really a fan of TTM personally. I think the handling can stress the fish out too much and it doesn't catch things like flukes. I'm hoping I'll be able to run chelated copper on both of them - I'm thinking of doing 2.25 ppm for like 2 weeks instead of the regular 4, with a transfer to my observation tank after. Prazi/GC should be tolerated by both I believe. I'm curious how Tankicians approached it too, though, so I hope they get back to me.

I'm actually not planning to get an urchin for mine. I already have a tuxedo and I feel like a longspine would wreck my tank lol. For now I think I'm going to try a 3D printed one instead and see if that helps it feel secure. From what I've read they luckily don't seem to be necessary. The store owner told me there's an urchin in the tank with the clingfish, but he's unsure if it's being hosted in the first place.

I'm really sorry to hear about the box failing. I hope your clingfish is okay and just hiding somewhere safe. They're such interesting little fish!

Gotcha, another place here in the US had them in stock, they are pretty rare.

My two cents on it is that hybrid TTM should take care of flukes. Secondly, these things have tiny mouths, like smaller than my pipefish.

That being the case, they need pod sized foods. I tried some frozen baby brine, some Reef Nutrition oyster feast, frozen daphnia, etc and it didn't care for those. They have a symbiotic relationship with urchins where they will eat their feet, but "ride" them for safety. From what I've read they also eat small hermit's eggs. Because of the need for some live food, I think copper will be hard.

I also made an assumption that being such tiny fish and having a heavy slime coat it is probably resistant (not immune) to things like a mandarin. They have a heavy slime coat to help protect them from the urchin spines.

That's good to know! My store guy said it's been actively picking on copepods and other small things, so I'm thinking that with some pods and freshly hatched brine shrimp it could work without an urchin. I've actually observed pods survive copper treatment before in my tank. Even after two weeks in 2+ ppm of copper I could clearly see them on the glass, moving.

 

[Kasrift]

That's good to know! My store guy said it's been actively picking on copepods and other small things, so I'm thinking that with some pods and freshly hatched brine shrimp it could work without an urchin. I've actually observed pods survive copper treatment before in my tank. Even after two weeks in 2+ ppm of copper I could clearly see them on the glass, moving.

I also wasn't going to go with a long spine urchin, I was hoping a tuxedo would work. I'm actually going to go out to petco this week and get a fake urchin to see if it pops up. I kind of suspect it is sharing a rock hideout with the neon goby.

 

[christinna77]

I also wasn't going to go with a long spine urchin, I was hoping a tuxedo would work. I'm actually going to go out to petco this week and get a fake urchin to see if it pops up. I kind of suspect it is sharing a rock hideout with the neon goby.

If you have a 3D printer, here are some urchin models I found. Still unsure which one will print nicely, but I can update you tomorrow on that!

https://www.printables.com/model/1564992-sea-urchin-whit-tpu-prick
https://free3d.com/3d-model/purple-spined-sea-urchin-v1--824574.html
https://www.cgtrader.com/free-3d-pr...a-urchin-d8cd762c-c88e-4455-95b5-84229ef41f0f
https://makerworld.com/en/models/2440077-sea-urchin-aquatic-sensory?from=search#profileId-2677584

 

[christinna77]

Update on the clingfish quarantine process. Tanknicians got back to me really fast on that, thank you again for the recommendation!

Their quarantine protocol for the clingfish was the following:

• Copper Power at 2.0 ppm, for 2 weeks
• Formalin for 2 weeks
• PraziPro, 3 times

A few extra notes they gave:

• The formalin dose was 0.9 ml per gallon, and it was used after the copper treatment
• With very small fish, they prefer to be conservative
• In their experience, many fish labeled as "copper sensitive" still do fine with a careful chelated copper treatment
• They've also had eels and puffers tolerate it well
• They mentioned that some public aquarium staff even use chelated copper with banded cat sharks, which is one of the few shark species that can tolerate it
• Best practice is to raise copper slowly. If there's no urgency, bring it up over 3 days

They also said:

• Alternatives to formalin (which I personally discourage from using as most hobbyists don't have the means to do it safely) include metronidazole with frequent WCs, or hydrogen peroxide in a very clean QT tank
• For any of these 3 options, the fish should not have shown signs of gill damage for several days or longer before treatment

I'm really glad to hear copper should be tolerated well by these fish. In my case, I'm leaning toward a modified R2R quarantine procedure: 2 weeks of copper, then transfer to a clean observation tank and treat with GC.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Update on the clingfish quarantine process. Tanknicians got back to me really fast on that, thank you again for the recommendation!

Their quarantine protocol for the clingfish was the following:

• Copper Power at 2.0 ppm, for 2 weeks
• Formalin for 2 weeks
• PraziPro, 3 times

A few extra notes they gave:

• The formalin dose was 0.9 ml per gallon, and it was used after the copper treatment
• With very small fish, they prefer to be conservative
• In their experience, many fish labeled as "copper sensitive" still do fine with a careful chelated copper treatment
• They've also had eels and puffers tolerate it well
• They mentioned that some public aquarium staff even use chelated copper with banded cat sharks, which is one of the few shark species that can tolerate it
• Best practice is to raise copper slowly. If there's no urgency, bring it up over 3 days

They also said:

• Alternatives to formalin (which I personally discourage from using as most hobbyists don't have the means to do it safely) include metronidazole with frequent WCs, or hydrogen peroxide in a very clean QT tank
• For any of these 3 options, the fish should not have shown signs of gill damage for several days or longer before treatment

I'm really glad to hear copper should be tolerated well by these fish. In my case, I'm leaning toward a modified R2R quarantine procedure: 2 weeks of copper, then transfer to a clean observation tank and treat with GC.

I’d skip the formalin - human health risks aside, the only activity it has that isn’t covered by copper is for Brooklynella, and that’s mostly seen in wild caught clownfish.

 

[christinna77]

I’d skip the formalin - human health risks aside, the only activity it has that isn’t covered by copper is for Brooklynella, and that’s mostly seen in wild caught clownfish.

Yep, that's my thought process too, thank you for your feedback as always!

 

[christinna77]

@Kasrift 3D printed my fake urchin today. It was a nightmare to remove the supports and I broke a few spines accidentally, but I think it came out pretty good otherwise!

I used this one: https://makerworld.com/en/models/2440077-sea-urchin-aquatic-sensory?from=search#profileId-2677584

 

[christinna77]

Both fish just arrived!

The clingfish looks great. It's super active and already exploring the tank. It's basically impossible to get any good pictures lol.

The sole is exploring the tank too, but I did notice some redness around his gills when I opened the bag. The transport took over 12 hours with no extra oxygen in the bag, so I'm hoping it's not because of that.

I tried to take some close up pictures when I was transferring him to the quarantine tank, and a video:

 

[christinna77]

@Kasrift My 3D printed urchin has been a success! My new clingfish switches between resting in my wavemaker (also black.. had to stop running it) and the urchin now.

 

[christinna77]

Just wanted to post a small update.

Both fish handled QT extremely well. Toward the end of Copper Power I actually dosed GC on top of it while monitoring everything very closely afterward. There was absolutely no reaction to the two medications being combined. Both fish kept acting and eating normally the whole time.

They've now been transferred to my observation tank. The sole is getting braver and comes out earlier each day now, instead of only appearing after lights out. It's eating pretty much any frozen food I place on the sand bed with the powerheads off.



The clingfish also got its new long spine urchin. It's still a baby, so I'm also keeping the 3D printed urchin in there for now. So far the clingfish seems to like sleeping in the printed urchin and exploring the live one during the day.



I'm still working on fully weaning the clingfish off brine shrimp and pods and onto frozen foods like fish eggs, frozen baby brine and calanus. I do see it eating those when there's no other choice, but it's definitely way more enthusiastic about BB and pods.

One interesting thing I've noticed is that the clingfish will stalk and sometimes attack my Halloween hermit crabs. I'm not sure if it's trying to steal their eggs or if it's actually trying to nip at their claws, eyes or something else (you can see it towards the end of the video). The hermits seem unharmed so far, but it's still a bit disturbing lol.