Cardinalfish died after a week in qt. Any signs of disease?

[rennjidk]

 

[MnFish1]

It is practically impossible to diagnose a fish after death out of the water - unless you happen to catch it immediately at death and take a picture. What symptoms - if any was it having when alive - was it quarantined? Was its mouth always open, breathing heavy, etc? how are. your other fish. How old is the tank - what are your parameters - ammonia, etc

 

[vetteguy53081]

As stated- hard to assess a cause from a dead carcass especially if deceased more than two hours. These are resilient fish with mine well over 5 years of age. They do well in newer systems and must be fed frozen foods as they rarely if at all touch and flake and pellet.
They Must be acclimated well and I ask-
How was fish acclimated and for how long ?

 

[rennjidk]

As stated- hard to assess a cause from a dead carcass especially if deceased more than two hours. These are resilient fish with mine well over 5 years of age. They do well in newer systems and must be fed frozen foods as they rarely if at all touch and flake and pellet.
They Must be acclimated well and I ask-
How was fish acclimated and for how long ?

It was in a QT with another cardinalfish. Bag floated for about 40 mins and then released. They've been in there for 10 days and I slowly raised the copper to 2.0 over 3 days. They were also treated with 2 doses of GC.

Edit: they were also fed frozen food and I have a powerhead aimed at the surface for the GC. The QT was already cycled.

 

[vetteguy53081]

It was in a QT with another cardinalfish. Bag floated for about 40 mins and then released. They've been in there for 10 days and I slowly raised the copper to 2.0 over 3 days. They were also treated with 2 doses of GC.

Edit: they were also fed frozen food and I have a powerhead aimed at the surface for the GC. The QT was already cycled.

Unfortunately a few mistakes were made along the way:
Acclimation - You want to float bag for about 15-20 minutes and start blending water from display tank with that of the bag water in a Clean bucket rather than in the bag. You wanted to enter a cup of water every 15 mins until the salinity in the bag matched with that of the tank (checking bag salinity)
as for copper- the therapuetic level is 2.5 and not 2.0 and should have been brought to therapuetic level within 24-36 hours or even sooner- not over 3 days as your fish will never get properly treated and any parasites if present may be resistive at lower level.
The treatment is copper level 2.25-2.5 monitored with a reliable copper test kit such as Hanna brand, not Api
Also monitor ammonia level with a reliable test kit during treatment and would not be a bad idea to add an air stone for added oxygen during treatment

 

[Jay Hemdal]

All I can add is that fish that die with their mouth open like that often had issues affecting their gills. If the fish is freshly dead, look at the gills. If they are pink or white, that is due to anemia.
Was this species wild caught? There is a huge issue with those dying from an odd virus that showed up in them a decade or so ago. Many people only buy captive raised because of that.
Jay

 

[rennjidk]

All I can add is that fish that die with their mouth open like that often had issues affecting their gills. If the fish is freshly dead, look at the gills. If they are pink or white, that is due to anemia.
Was this species wild caught? There is a huge issue with those dying from an odd virus that showed up in them a decade or so ago. Many people only buy captive raised because of that.
Jay

Unfortunately, I've already disposed of it but after looking at the website, it appears that it is not captive bred, which is disappointing. I'm assuming the other one is also most likely infected with this species specific virus as well?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Unfortunately, I've already disposed of it but after looking at the website, it appears that it is not captive bred, which is disappointing. I'm assuming the other one is also most likely infected with this species specific virus as well?

Could be - the virus does seem contagious, but I don't know to what percentage. And, it may not be that virus at all.

Jay

 

[MnFish1]

All I can add is that fish that die with their mouth open like that often had issues affecting their gills. If the fish is freshly dead, look at the gills. If they are pink or white, that is due to anemia.
Was this species wild caught? There is a huge issue with those dying from an odd virus that showed up in them a decade or so ago. Many people only buy captive raised because of that.
Jay

Always a new tidbit - thanks Jay