Dead Trigger

[bcoop78]

Well I woke up this morning to find my Niger Trigger stuck to my MP 40. I'd had him a week. He was hiding a lot, but always came out to eat. My clowns, corals, and inverts are all doing fine.. The trigger had no visible signs of disease.. I'm pretty bummed.. Any ideas?

[Jan]

How long have you had it?

[bcoop78]

A week..

[Jan]

Was it in your DT or QT? Did you check the SG of the water it came? How long did you acclimate it? the reason I ask is because many times, depending on where you buy your fish, the fish are kept in a low SG. It takes a long time to acclimate them to our systems if your SG is higher. Now I'm making an assumption when i say your SG was higher and I might be wrong but please tell me what your parameters are and if you you checked params of the water it came in. Fish who have been in a low SG for a while a

nd then placed in higher SG too fast will take up to a week to die. they will appear fine. Sometimes they wont eat and sometimes they will. Then all of a sudden they're dead. It happened a couple of times to me with fish I purchased at super Petz when they were open. It dawned on me after the second loss to check Sg. Most LFS's, at least our sponsors, will let you know this in advance and unfortunatley some don't. Liveaquaria also keeps fish in lower than 1.024-2.026 DG. they're at about 1.020. Just my thoughts. Edited June 13, 2012 by Jan

[bcoop78]

Makes sense.. I did not check their water. I drip acclimated for an hour though... My SG is kept at 1.025. I guess next time. Will check the bag water.. Is there a formula for determining acclimation time based on deviation of SG?

[Jan]

I don't know of one. I acclimate using a very slow drop (1 every 3-4 seconds two knots in the tube) over about 5-7 hours for fish I get from F&F's. He keeps his SG at 1.010. I acclimated fish yesterday that came from 1.020 for 8 hours. Then they went into QT of 1.026 for observation. So far they are all eating except for 1. That happens with low SG because their body uses less stored fat/energy so they don't need to eat as often.

 

Fish kept in lower SG are more resistant to disease, store more oxygen making them better to transport in addition to the above.

 

Makes sense.. I did not check their water. I drip acclimated for an hour though... My SG is kept at 1.025. I guess next time. Will check the bag water.. Is there a formula for determining acclimation time based on deviation of SG?

Edited June 13, 2012 by Jan

[hypertech]

I think an hour is plenty. More than that and I start to worry about temperature shock and added stress from being in the small container too long.

 

Can you explain the basis for this SG based one week death theory? Seems like conjecture to me.

 

Fish can handle a lot. People shock sick fish with ich in a fresh water bath as a therapy. I don't see how acclimating could lead to a death a week later if the SG was too far apart.

Edited June 13, 2012 by hypertech

[Jan]

You should also know that certain fish are caught with cyanide. A fish caught with cyanide may take up to month to die. It will appear fine. Many Regal Angels caught outside of the Red Sea are caught using this method. That's why the ones caught from the Red Sea (yellow belly) are more expensive and highly sought after. There are other fish that are caught with this method, but I don't know which ones. This is why I read as much as I can about the fish I want before purchasing them, especially high end fish and I QT. I'm sorry you lost your fish.

Edited June 13, 2012 by Jan

[jaddc]

That sucks! Sorry for your loss.

 

It sounds like your acclimation was fine.

 

Jan's last post was right on. These fish undergo tremendous stress before they hit our tanks. They are caught. Held in an exporter's tank. Shipping overseas to a US wholesaler's tank. Shipping to a retailer. It's all a black box for the consumer. And if the fish is highly prized, like your trigger, then the rest time between stresses is minimal at best. A fish is not making anyone any money for the time it sits in holding tanks so they move fish along the supply chain as fast as possible.

 

The fish could have had an internal parasite or pathology that you could never diagnose by looking at it -- you'd need to do a fish necropsy. A QT tank is nice to have. Not only for the obvious stuff like Ich, but also to give the fish to chill out and recover before introducing to the DT. If the fish dies in the QT you can rule out that aggressive and hungry crab/anemone/snail/coral/worm/MP40. It doesn't help the loss, but at least the mystery is gone.

Edited June 13, 2012 by jaddc

[Jan]

FEI

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2006/1/aafeature2

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/6/fish

[Coral Hind]

Sorry to hear the bad news. Was the mouth and / or gills spread open on the fish? That's a sign it was not getting enough O2 from ich or something attacking the gills.

[Sharkey18]

So sorry about your trigger.

 

Thanks for the great articles Jan.

[zygote2k]

There are simply too many variables here to really come up with an answer other than the fact that sometimes you just lose a fish.

[Jan]

......and then there's that, or is it this?

 

There are simply too many variables here to really come up with an answer other than the fact that sometimes you just lose a fish.

[icecool2]

You also need to factor in that this is a new tank with a relatively high bio-load for it's age.

[rocko918]

I think your going to have more problems down the road if you dont slow down. From this pic it looks like you have Hair Algae, red slime algae and caulerpa .Plus a bleached RBTA. Might want to let your tank settle before add anything else.

 

Edited June 14, 2012 by rocko918

[Tracy G]

I know I am new at this but I starting adding livestock fast and started to notice some spikes in ammonia. I increased my clean up crew, and increased my water changes. I was doing 5% per day and now everything has come back down and doing weekly changes. I will not be adding anything for at least 30 days, and a lot slower. I also have a cycled filter for my QT tank when I purchase my next item. Going slow will keep your fish happier.