Shrim and perching fish

[guppie]

My dad and I have a 55 gallon saltwater, dead coral for decoration, nothing special. There are 2 false peracula clowns, a yellow damsel, and a yellow tang. We tried to put in a perching fish and a shrimp, but the perching fish disappeared and the shrimp died. Do they need any special care or food? I feed freeze dried tubifex worms, but my dad feeds them tropical flakes sometimes. I really liked them because they added color and variety, and I want to try again, any tips?

Thanks

[TheOldSalt]

What the heck is a perching fish?

[guppie]

They are really cool, they have no swim bladder, so they swim from coral to coral and "perch" on them. Not the scientific name at all, sorry.

[trashion]

Hmmmm, how often do you do water changes on this tank?

[Scuba Kid]

I think he means hawkfish.
What kind of hawkfish did you get?

Tell more about the setup...what kind of filtration, maintenance schedule, and what are the water parameters?

By the way, you'd be better off feeding frozen foods to saltwater fish along with marine flakes and pellets. Variety is always good and many good frozen foods are full of good stuff for marine fish and they're more inclined to eat it over dried foods.

[guppie]

The hawkfish (?) was white with red lines crisscrossing it's body.The filter is a canister filter I think, water is added when needed and a change is done about every two weeks. We also rotate the coral to clean it, and I can test the water tonight to tell you.

[Scuba Kid]

Sounds like a longnose hawkfish.


Canister filters need to be cleaned very often on saltwater tanks since they tend to build up nitrates quickly. I'd suggest start cleaning the filter when you do water changes.
You should also have a protein skimmer on that tank. This will help immensely in removing organics in the water. Skimmers are one of the best investments when you're keeping saltwater...

[guppie]

I'll be sure to try that next time it's cleaned, I hope it helps,

Thanks!