Chromis sudden death

[jourspacedan]

Hi. I have a 1 and a half year old mixed reef tank with a pair of clowns, yellow scopas tang, blue tang, sailfin tang, and 3 blue/green chromis. All fish had been with me for more than a year already.

However, just this week, all 3 of my Chromis died in the most sudden mind boggling way and all in different days.

When feeding or viewing the tank from top view, I always turn off the pump and WM (Vortech MP40). The first Chromis died while I was feeding Ocean Nutrition pellets. As I threw the pellets into the tank the Chromis suddenly thrashed around and just dropped dead to the sandbed all in a matter of seconds. i asked all my reefer friends and they couldn't give any explanation of what happened so we just ruled it out as a fish stroke or heart attack. The second Chromis died yesterday in a similar manner.

The third Chromis died just a while ago, and I can't really find anything anywhere on what might have caused it. As usual I turned off the pump and WM. This time, I fed frozen mysis shrimp holding the cube with tweezers and whooshing it around to melt it. Then suddenly the Chromis just thrashed around like having a seizure and fell dead onto the sandbed. This time I observed that its mouth was wide open as it died.

Can anyone enlighten me as to what and how these deaths happened? It's really mind boggling.

Pics of dead Chromis 1 and 3 attached. No signs of disease, sickness, cuts, or bruises.

Thanks!

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi. I have a 1 and a half year old mixed reef tank with a pair of clowns, yellow scopas tang, blue tang, sailfin tang, and 3 blue/green chromis. All fish had been with me for more than a year already.

However, just this week, all 3 of my Chromis died in the most sudden mind boggling way and all in different days.

When feeding or viewing the tank from top view, I always turn off the pump and WM (Vortech MP40). The first Chromis died while I was feeding Ocean Nutrition pellets. As I threw the pellets into the tank the Chromis suddenly thrashed around and just dropped dead to the sandbed all in a matter of seconds. i asked all my reefer friends and they couldn't give any explanation of what happened so we just ruled it out as a fish stroke or heart attack. The second Chromis died yesterday in a similar manner.

The third Chromis died just a while ago, and I can't really find anything anywhere on what might have caused it. As usual I turned off the pump and WM. This time, I fed frozen mysis shrimp holding the cube with tweezers and whooshing it around to melt it. Then suddenly the Chromis just thrashed around like having a seizure and fell dead onto the sandbed. This time I observed that its mouth was wide open as it died.

Can anyone enlighten me as to what and how these deaths happened? It's really mind boggling.

Pics of dead Chromis 1 and 3 attached. No signs of disease, sickness, cuts, or bruises.

Thanks!

Any aggression from others in the tank?
Top photo looks like fin damage which would make swimming difficult
Was it eating until the time of death?

 

[jourspacedan]

Any aggression from others in the tank?
Top photo looks like fin damage which would make swimming difficult
Was it eating until the time of death?

No aggression whatsoever from the other tankmates. All of them were healthy and eating heartily. Their death was sudden; I was literally watching them as I was feeding. Swimming - seizure - dead in a matter of seconds (around 5 sec).

 

[vetteguy53081]

No aggression whatsoever from the other tankmates. All of them were healthy and eating heartily. Their death was sudden; I was literally watching them as I was feeding. Swimming - seizure - dead in a matter of seconds (around 5 sec).

Seizure-
Any stray voltage, was it pellet food, crash into glass?

 

[jourspacedan]

Seizure-
Any stray voltage, was it pellet food, crash into glass?

Won't stray voltage affect other LS too? The WM is a Vortech MP40 so the motor is out of the tank.

The first Chromis died while I was feeding pellets, the 3rd one while I was feeding frozen mysis.

They were in the middle of the tank when the deaths happened. They looked like they were having a heart attack.

Only common factor was I was feeding.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Won't stray voltage affect other LS too? The WM is a Vortech MP40 so the motor is out of the tank.

The first Chromis died while I was feeding pellets, the 3rd one while I was feeding frozen mysis.

They were in the middle of the tank when the deaths happened. They looked like they were having a heart attack.

Only common factor was I was feeding.

Stray voltage isn't an issue, and a true ground fault would affect all fish.

Here is my best guess: these chromis look pretty plump, overweight in fact. You've had them for some time. Fish like that develop fatty livers. For some reason, fish with that problem cannot handle excitement/stress, and they just up and die. If you still have one of the fish, cut it open and look at the liver. If it is pale/white then that is probably the issue. If it is red, then something else is going on.

Here is a similar story: we needed to capture some bluestripe snappers out of a large tank by diving with a barrier net. These were really fat guys that had been in the tank for two years. As we chased them into the net, some of them just up and died....all had fatty livers.

Jay

 

[jourspacedan]

Stray voltage isn't an issue, and a true ground fault would affect all fish.

Here is my best guess: these chromis look pretty plump, overweight in fact. You've had them for some time. Fish like that develop fatty livers. For some reason, fish with that problem cannot handle excitement/stress, and they just up and die. If you still have one of the fish, cut it open and look at the liver. If it is pale/white then that is probably the issue. If it is red, then something else is going on.

Here is a similar story: we needed to capture some bluestripe snappers out of a large tank by diving with a barrier net. These were really fat guys that had been in the tank for two years. As we chased them into the net, some of them just up and died....all had fatty livers.

Jay

Thank you for this insight, you might be on point. Might have to reduce my feeding since all my fish are fat