CBB Suddenly Stopped Eating

[spartanman22]

Hey All,

Quick backstory, I had an ich breakthrough into my display tank, and it also coupled with a bacterial infection. I pulled all fish, treated with antibiotics and ran them in copper at 2.5 mg/L for 45 days (I know longer than my 30 day QT protocol, but they were all responding fine). I left the DT fallow for 60 days at 81 degrees. Ran a PCR test and got confirmed non detect for ich, velvet and brook. Returned all the fish to the DT on July 22nd (day 62). Since then everyones been fine. All fish ate great in the quarantine process and were eating great since returning to the DT two weeks ago. My White Tail Bristletooh and CBB looked a bit skinny after the ordeal, but I was also feeding lighter since they were in a smaller QT. I've been feeding meaty foods at least 1x a day (usually 2) and pellets multiple times a day. Up until yesterday everyone seemed great. Then my CBB seemed pretty disinterested in any food. Again this morning no interest in brine or masstick. He looked scary skinny this morning and was less active. He normally was a great feeder, I could hand feed him brine, anytime I walked by the tank he was at the surface looking for food. This morning he didn't even move for food when I fed the tank.

I'm sure there's other parasites that impact appetite, but I'm used to the main one being velvet. I'm very confident there's no velvet in the DT. Nothing was added to the DT during the fallow period and all fish have been back in the display for two weeks now with no other symptoms. All other fish look perfectly normal. Could this just be a delayed reaction to copper? There's an insane amount of live food in the tank. It was amazing how over grown the pod population got with 60+ days of no fish.

Current inhabitants are white tail bristletooth, CBB, clown pair, sixline, and oreni tilefish in an 80 gallon tank.

 

[christinna77]

I don't think this is a delayed reaction to copper. It may be stress from the QT environment or bullying if the QT tank was too small to house all the fish. CBBs can go on hunger strikes after being moved. How long have you had the fish?

Try offering more than brine shrimp since it has very little nutritional value. Mysis, plankton, LRS, live bloodworms may help encourage it to eat. Leaving a clam in the tank for it to pick at during the day should also help. Was the CBB actually eating pellets before the QT took place? As most will only ever accept live or frozen.

I recommend posting a 30s close up video of the fish under bright white lights (no blue), so the it can be assessed properly by our #fishmedic.

 

[spartanman22]

I’ll take a video when I get home. I’ve had him for about 1 month before I had my outbreak. So poor guys gone through copper twice in a somewhat short period of time. Got him around end of May.

I’ve tried everything you’ve suggested. Only thing he’ll eat is Spirulina Brine. No mysis, no LRS, no pellets (spectrum, TDO), no frozen or live clams, nada. He was eating the brine so well that I figured I’d be alright working on expanding his diet. There’s an obscene amount of pods everywhere so there should be ample live options.

I did get masstick in yesterday. I mixed some up and spread it on a clam shell and froze. He didn’t have any interest, but I didn’t have a ton of time to observe.

 

[spartanman22]

It just seems weird that the stress and loss of appetite is happening two weeks after re-entry to the display. No visible signs of aggression amongst anyone. He was eating from my hand as recent as Friday.

 

[winxp_man]

Almost sounds like the possibly of internal parasites.

Post a video under bright white lights and pictures along with video. 20-30 second video and try to make it HD posted to YT. Being they allow up to 4k quality.


Edit:

Get some black worms from a LFS near you if they carry any.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

It just seems weird that the stress and loss of appetite is happening two weeks after re-entry to the display. No visible signs of aggression amongst anyone. He was eating from my hand as recent as Friday.

I don't think this is a "delayed reaction to copper" - people may talk about that, but the research shows that copper is an acute toxin if over-dosed, you would see effects during the copper treatment itself.

That said, you were dosing on the high side, for longer than normal... 2.25 ppm for 30 days is a good target, but in heavy cases of ich, you would need to go to 2.5 ppm for 30 days beyond the last day that spots were seen on the fish (and that could well end up being 45 days or so).

The fish in the video above is wafer-thin and not feeding very aggressively. This can creep up on people because you see the fish every day. What happens is as the fish loses body mass, it begins to use its liver tissue as a food source (fish don't have much fat stores). At a point then, the liver fails and the fish stops feeding and dies. It isn't reversable though.

 

[spartanman22]

I don't think this is a "delayed reaction to copper" - people may talk about that, but the research shows that copper is an acute toxin if over-dosed, you would see effects during the copper treatment itself.

That said, you were dosing on the high side, for longer than normal... 2.25 ppm for 30 days is a good target, but in heavy cases of ich, you would need to go to 2.5 ppm for 30 days beyond the last day that spots were seen on the fish (and that could well end up being 45 days or so).

The fish in the video above is wafer-thin and not feeding very aggressively. This can creep up on people because you see the fish every day. What happens is as the fish loses body mass, it begins to use its liver tissue as a food source (fish don't have much fat stores). At a point then, the liver fails and the fish stops feeding and dies. It isn't reversable though.

Dang ok, ya he never really was able to put on mass in QT - which I attributed to just stress and environment, but he did eat readily and good amounts at every feeding. Unfortunately he'd only really eat the brine. He'd nibble every now and then on LRS, but not consistently. I found he was very picky on shape even with the brine. He would eat a good amount, but was very selective in which ones. Whereas the tang and tilefish are just playing pacman and gobbling up anything they can.

I was really hoping he'd go for the masstick since people seem to have good luck with CBBs with it.

 

[winxp_man]

Dang ok, ya he never really was able to put on mass in QT - which I attributed to just stress and environment, but he did eat readily and good amounts at every feeding. Unfortunately he'd only really eat the brine. He'd nibble every now and then on LRS, but not consistently. I found he was very picky on shape even with the brine. He would eat a good amount, but was very selective in which ones. Whereas the tang and tilefish are just playing pacman and gobbling up anything they can.

I was really hoping he'd go for the masstick since people seem to have good luck with CBBs with it.

Brine is not enough for sure. I would try black worms as a last ditch effort.

 

[spartanman22]

Dang ok, ya he never really was able to put on mass in QT - which I attributed to just stress and environment, but he did eat readily and good amounts at every feeding. Unfortunately he'd only really eat the brine. He'd nibble every now and then on LRS, but not consistently. I found he was very picky on shape even with the brine. He would eat a good amount, but was very selective in which ones. Whereas the tang and tilefish are just playing pacman and gobbling up anything they can.

I was really hoping he'd go for the masstick since people seem to have good luck with CBBs with it.

Brine is not enough for sure. I would again try black worms as a last ditch effort.

I’ll see if I can find some locally.