My first fatality :(

[baseman]

I lost an Orchid Dottyback, but I have a theory as to what happened, so I thought I would ask your opinions. The tank is now 7 months old and the orchid was the last addition. There are four other fish in the tank and they all got along well. I vary the food I feed them (veggie flakes, cyclopeez, mysis shrimp, brine shimp).
To make a long story longer, here's my theory. The Mysis shrimp that I have (frozen) are quite large, and my fish are all small (the largest is the Hippo and he's about 3"), so I chop up the Mysis before I put it in the tank. I noticed about 3 weeks ago after I fed them mysis, that the orchid had a huge piece of shimp it was trying to eat, I guess I didn't chop it up fine enough. I'm thinking that this large chunk of shimp may have caused an intestinal block. The fish continued to eat for a while but was getting very thin.
Any ideas?

 

[Anonymous]

Truthfully, that last statement reminds me so much of the description of fishes exposed to cyanide, that that would be the direction I'd look to.

 

[baseman]

Seamaiden - Cyanide is not an issue here. It was tank raised.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, then I can only extrapolate from my own experiences with horses, and when they suffer blocks the first thing they do is STOP eating. I really have no idea at this point. I've never seen a fish that ate, but lost weight and died that wasn't exposed at some point.

I've read that there's a difference between tank raised (that being wild-caught and then reared in captivity) and captive raised (that being bred, born, and raised in captivity). Puzzling.

 

[baseman]

I'm going to stop by the LFS tomorrow. I'll ask them about tank raised. In the last couple of days, he/she always came out of hiding when I fed them, but didn't eat much, if anything.

 

[liquid]

What other fish do you have in the tank?

Shane

 

[baseman]

I have a Hippo tang, two Percula Clowns and a Choral Beauty. I don't think there is a harrassment issue. The dottyback wsn't intimidated by anyone.

 

[liquid]

Are you sure he was eating it or just mouthing his food? I've seen freshwater fish that will suck food into their mouth for 10 seconds or so and then spit it out. I lost a lot of native darters that way because I wasn't paying attention to that.

Shane

 

[baseman]

He was eating up until the last few days, but I didn't notice how much. He didn't show any outward signs of infection, just kept getting thinner.

 

[liquid]

About the only other thing I can think of would be to do an autopsy on the fish to find out what exactly happened. You've got me stumped...

Shane

 

[baseman]

I had thought about that, but I don't have the tools or the skills any more to accomplish a task like that on something so small. The only other thing I didn't mention is that I'm battling a flatworm problem right now. I haven't traeted the tank chemically, I've just been siphoning them out. It could be possible that I killed just enough of them is the process, that because this fish was so small, he was a victim of toxins. It hasn't affected any of the other fish and one of my clowns is only about a inch long (but fat).

 

[LX302]

It could have been internale parasites. I lost a cardinalfish this way. Would only eat Mysis and after two weeks stopped eating. Treated him with Maracyn-Two and ordered some meds to soak the food in for internal parasites and since he wasn't eating I couldn't save him.

 

[Anonymous]

Welcome to reefs.org, LX. You bring up a very good point. Did your fish become visibly thin? How did you determine internal parasites? The more information you can share, the better. What medications did you intend to use on this fish? Did you treat the other tankmates prophyactically?

TIA

 

[baseman]

LX - I would like to know the details as well.

 

[Minh Nguyen]

Essentially all the Orchid dottyback are captive bred these days. They are only from the Red Sea and very hard to catch since they live in the rock.
Fish that eats well but loose weight can only mean they do not assimilate the food that they eat, or Cyanide poisoning (Cyanide uncouple the respiration process from ATP generation resulting in wasted burning up of food by the animal). In this case, cyanide poisoning is out of the question since he was captive bred. That leaves the possibility of gut derangement some how. It cannot be congenital (common in captive bred) because if it were congenital (defect since birth) he would not grow well enough to be sold. His GI track must be damage somehow. The other considerations are either parasite, or injury to the GI track likely due to excessive treatment with medication. I have heard people said, but have not confirmed, that certain medication will cause damage to liver, and or GI track of the fish. This could be the case or he may get a parasite from somewhere.
Sorry about the fish. They are certainly beautiful fish, one of my favorites.

Minh

 

[Bleeding Blue]

Sorry about your fish baseman.

The other considerations are either parasite, or injury to the GI track likely due to excessive treatment with medication.

Do you think that this is the kind of thing that happens when lfs's keep fish in low salinity and copper? Or, are you talking about other medical treatments?

Mike

 

[Minh Nguyen]

Sorry about your fish baseman.

The other considerations are either parasite, or injury to the GI track likely due to excessive treatment with medication.

Do you think that this is the kind of thing that happens when lfs's keep fish in low salinity and copper? Or, are you talking about other medical treatments?

Mike

Mike,
It is possible, but I don't know. It is very likely that this Orchid Dottyback got something wrong in his gut. I don't know why or how it was damage.

Minh