No problem , just be careful not to touch them as they can give you a nasty rash.

Just a thought , as i've not personally had this problem before.

Could you get the fish out , wrap it in a wet tea towel to hold it still ( it will stay still when wrapped , and very gently held ) , then snip the spines with nail scissors , remove the body of the fish and then withdraw the spines with tweezers ?

If the goldy is going to die through not being able to feed and through distress , surely anything you can do to help must be tried.

Obviously , i take on board what Jag has said about the toxins , but i can't see what else you can do.

I think letting the cory rot in the goldies mouth is the wrong thing to do by the way. You could potentially poison the goldy .

Bristleworms are an integral ( and free ) part of your clean up crew. They won't harm fish or healthy inverts.

They will hoover up any uneaten food that escapes the hermits attention.

The population will be fairly constant , if you notice an explosion of them , you are probably over feeding.

Would probably freak your fish out .

We use it in the marine world when we introduce a new fish to a tank with an established dominant fish.

Basically you put a mirror at one end , the dominant fish spends his whole time attacking his own reflection , and give the new fish a chance to settle in without being bashed.

Long term it would be detrimental to the fishes health.

R.I.P. Spot

Why did you add Oodinex ?

Depressed now.

Thank you for trying your best with him.

Just to add to this with regards to the 6 line.

The tank is too small for a 6 line , it will very quickly become the dominant fish ( which it has done ) and will not want other fish in 'it's' territory. The tank is too small for the other fish to find a satisfactory distance from the 6 line.

I recently had to rehome my 6 line ( from my 250L ) as he was becoming a bully to my mandarin. Eventually i would expect the 6 line to kill the clown if left in there.

Syphoning is the key , along with more regular water changes.

Defrost the food in a small tea strainer in a glass of warmed RO , rinse in RO and then add to the tank. If you are adding the water the food was defrosted in you are adding a huge amount of PO4 to the tank ( test the water you have defrosted the food in , and be ready for a shock ! )

Recently i cleared a cyano outbreak in my tank by the addition of erythromycin ( an antibiotic ) , but this is a last resort.

I agree , the trops and coldwater section is very busy.

I had taken a break for a little while , but am back now , if there is anything specific i can help you with , i'd be happy to. I'll try to check in at least once every couple of days.

Any reason you are going FOWLR initially , you are 2/3 rds of the way to a reef , why not try a reef setup ?

Presume you are going to use the live rock for filtration anyway , so why not go the whole hog ? A full reef doesn't have to be loads of work ( dependant on coral choice ) and IMO is much nicer to watch than just FOWLR where you are relying on the fish for all the movement.

H

Just a thought Suey , when he was with me for the few hours , i was feeding him marine flake ( as i didn't have any thing else as i only have marines )

He was wolfing it down , could there have been anything in it that wouldn't agree with a freshwater fish ? If you think it is ok to feed him marine flake , I can send you some of it if you want to try him on it to get him feeding again.