Banjo's booboo

[arizonagrace]

I have a cardinal which has been doing wonderful in a tank with a purple dottyback, until the past 3 days.

I noticed the cardinal (banjo) was sticking around the lower part of the tank near the frogspawn. He acted depressed. I did a 20% water change to see if that would help, but he still acted this way. Today, I see that his tail is almost a stub and is a bit bloody. My lfs said it was probably Cello (dottyback) picking on him. I moved Cello into another tank and now Banjo is alone in this tank with just a fire shrimp.

Is it safe to put in melafix (lfs said to do this) if I have crabs, snails, fire shrimp, xenias, star polyps, feather duster, mushrooms and a frogspawn. I don't want to hurt anything in there, but want to give him a good chance at recovering. His water parameters are all very good, and I plan on doing 5-10% changes daily for a few days to see if this helps him out.

Any suggestions? He has since moved back to the top of the tank when Cello was taken out.

I figure once he is healed up, I will add a bicolor blenny and that's it for that tank.

[1ofManyNguyens]

i suggest you move him into a QT/hospital tank and do any treatment there.

[arizonagrace]

I have a 1.5 gallon tank with light and I could put a sponge filter in it, or a 2.5 gallon glass tank. I didn't want to move him around as he is so stressed right now. If I put him in a 1.5 tank, will he be okay? I only have sponge filters that are cycled in other tanks that are freshwater, so I don't know if that will help or not. Will I have to put in liverock as well? As for heating, I don't have any heaters that will fit either of these tanks

[1ofManyNguyens]

With a tank that small it will be hard to maintain the parameters. maybe investing in larger (10g at petsmart go for like 15-20 bucks) and that might be better. You will need to fit a heater in the tank as well because large fluctuations in temp can cause stress. Hope this helps. Im sure others will chime in too.

[dynamite]

I had the same problem with a dottyback picking on my clownfish.. I took the dottyback back to the LFS and the clown healed by itself in 5 days. Good Luck.

[arizonagrace]

I hope the dottyback will be okay in his new tank. There are 2 clowns in there. I really like the guy and hate to trade him in
I will see if I can get a 10 gallon tank. I have 5 gallons, but that will probably be too small as well. My problem isn't $ to get it, it is where on earth where I set it up. Every nook, cranny, flat surface and wall area is taken up by tanks

[1ofManyNguyens]

well i a was going to suggest a "picture frame" fish tank but you said wall was covered too.