BAD! Neon Dottyback BAD!

[Grandczar]

This little mofo has almost single handly destroyed my entire DSB. Time to go fishing!

I did get a good laugh a few days ago. When it got its butt whooped by a Fire worm. Still has a few bristles on its head from the encounter.

I have tried using food in a net facing a corner. Waiting for it to get brave and let me swoop it up. However this is a very smart and agile fish. Any ideas? only other fish is a bangaii cardingal. Should I net my cardinal and go fishing with a small hook? What size hook?

This dottyback is beautiful but has overstayed its welcome! Would be great fish for FO tank but sucks in my reef!

Has killed:
1 cleaner shrimp (was there before dottyback)

lots of Stomatella Varia(or there hiding really good)

almost no visible evidence of pods anymore...
Yet he always looks like his belly is gonna pop...This is before my once a day feeding...

All that is left is my turbo's, Astrea's, spaghetti and bristle worms.
And he seems to be eye ball'n em pretty good.
waiting for an oppertunity...

Please help me get this S.O.B outta my tank!
Removing LR is not an option.....
THNX!

[ August 21, 2001: Message edited by: Grandczar ]

 

[tanzy]

Get a real bad and mean looking Bicolor dottyback, bigger the better. The more pugnacious the better. Put them together and watch the bicolor open a can of whoop-ass on your neon.
Not the best idea, anyone else?

 

[Grandczar]

LOL...

Would be great fun but wouldnt solve my dilema! I am now prejudice against all dottybacks!

[ August 21, 2001: Message edited by: Grandczar ]

 

[davelin315]

Do the old feed the fish and then scoop him out trick. Drop some food on top of the water and when he comes up to eat, swoop in with the net. You'll only get one chance, so do it right and do it quickly. And then package him up and send him to me so that he can be safely disposed of.

 

[Mr Premnas]

I too once suffered through a mean SOB of a dottyback. I tried every trick I could think of to get that fish out, including size 22 fishing hooks (he would just come up from the bottom and nibble the food off), so I tried the following and it worked. I do not know how your live rock is aquascaped, but if you have an area clear of rock where you could set a small container on the sand this may work. I used an empty (of course) strawberry container. Not the green mesh type, but a clear plastic that had small holes throughout, and an attached lid. Place a piece of live rock in the container with a little food. When the dottyback goes over to see if there is anything to pick on or kill place the net slowly in the tank. If yours is anything like mine he will dive under the piece of rock that is in the container. Just shut the lid and pull the entire container out.
Good Luck - I know how much of a pain in the ass these guys can be.

 

[Anonymous]

I Can now cross off the Dottyback on my 'Fish want list'

Thanks all

B

 

[tanzy]

C'mon! Dottybacks aren't that bad! My second fish was a bicolor dotty. Died 3 months ago. Don't know why. Old age I suppose. He/she was the smartest fish in the tank. Always cautious, never bothering to fight for food, just snoops off into the rocks to get the ones that are stuck in them.
Once I saw it attempt to extract food stuck between the glass and a piece of rock. It tried to get at it from the front but couldn't fit, so it went behind, but again it couldn't get close enough. So it 'blew' some water at the scrap which promptly dislodged the food and rushed to the front to get it. Problem solving! Smart!
Now I have replaced bicolor with a diadema. Real feisty little fella. Will nip at fishes that get too close to his territory.
They aren't all that bad! At least they don't eat live fish and corals!

 

[phishy4]

Originally posted by tanzy:
[QB]C'mon! Dottybacks aren't that bad!
I got a neon dottyback 3 months ago. I was so worried my orange tailed damsel and my yellow wrasse would kill it. 3 weeks earlier I tried a royal gramma and the damsel killed it the first day. So I wasnt sure if the dottyback would make it. Way wrong, as soon as he came out of the bag he took the tank over established half the tank and always nips at the wrasse. The shrimp I have attack him whenever he is near. Killed all 10 red legs the first week. The bi color blenny and him square off sometimes to. He is a bad ass. I think you could put him with any big meat eating fish and he would hold his own.

 

[tanzy]

These neon fellas sound like the dotty mafia or something. I've only kept Pacific dottybacks so I'm not too sure about the Red Sea ones. I know that all dottybacks are pugnacious, there's no doubt about it, but my dottyback gets chased around by my clowns, village belle and purple tang once it is out of the security of the rocks. In the rocks, the dottyback rulez! He will nip any fish that gets too close.
phishy, how big is your tank? Are there ample hiding space? I heard they are related to the garoupa. Sounds like we found a tank mates for shark keepers!

 

[Goldmoon]

I agree with Tanzy. Not all dottybacks are *monsters*.
I got a springerii dottyback, and it never touched anything. He is the one being chased around in the tank. Oh I admit like other fishes he has his good side and bad, but he is far from the worst of the tankmates. The only thing he did was attacking a scarlet reef shrimp we added to the tank. But we noticed just after putting it in that the shrimp did not have any claws in the front and was missing many legs. It had been attacked by something at the LFS. The dottyback was just finishing the job.
When we returned the shrimp to the LFS, we saw that half of their shrimps were like that and they admitted that the fish with them had done the job. That fish was a dottyback too but I can not remember the name he told us it was.
All in all, the springerii is my favorite fish. He has his own personality.

 

[phishy4]

Sounds like we found a tank mates for shark.
I think it could live with the sharks.
55 gallon reef Its really not that bad. He just has his territory and no fish is allowed under his rocks especially the yellow wrasse.
Its funny to see the shrimp attack him its like they almost sense that he is evil and they dont want him near them. He is a great fish the way he moves almost eel like.

 

[Grandczar]

* Update *

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote

Removing LR is not an option.....

Now in retrospect week later. I laugh at that statement after exausting all known methods of capture'n. *NOT* removing LR was not an option..... At 6:30 in the morning after struggling with this little S.O.B. for many hours. Relandscaping my reef via a rubbermaid container became my only viable option. Glad to report that he is doing fine and where he belongs(lfs). Where he immediately got established in there tank!

Replaced him with 2 cleaners shrimp and Lawnmower blenny. Honest, hard working crew. Back to rebuilding those infinite number of pods I had.

(side note: Those damn stomatella varia were hiding really good! I've seen 3 since that little S.O.B.'s departure!)

Confucious says:
Beware of pretty fish with evil sparkle in eye!

 

[tanzy]

What a pity the dottyback must go!

How about a scorpion fish?

 

[Alice]

Look up Pseudochromis aldabrensis in Scott Micheal's pocket guide "known to disembowel tankmates"; that ought to give you a clue as to their disposition!

 

[reeferJ]

I've thought about removing my Neon also, as he's the prick of the reef, but it's my wife's favorite fish. On a humorous note, if you want to catch a Neon, try this:

In the early days of my reef, I had a serious outbreak of cyano, I was siphoning the cyano out with some tubing, now I don't know about all Neon's, but mine is nosy as hell, so as I'm siphoning the cyano he is nosing around the tube and you guessed it - SLURP! in he goes, he's stuck in the tubing about 4" back! I quickly cut the tubing and "blew" him back in the tank. No worse for the wear and still the prick of the tank.