Just had 2 fish due in quarantine unexpectedly

Bthomas · May 15, 2019

I have been quarantining a group of 4 lyretail anthias and 2 azure damsels. They went through 2 weeks of copper and metro treatment along with 2 doses of prazi in one quarantine tank and then were moved to a sterile tank and had been there for 4 days. I checked on them this morning with the intention of moving them to my display today and found 2 dead (one damsel and one anthias)
I had not seen any signs of disease at all.. Everything seemed fine with them.
The only thing i can think of is they were possibly getting bullied although I had not seen much signs of that and until today they were all out swimming about and acting normal. But when I found them both their fins were pretty tore up.. I don't know if they were being picked on after they died or if they were bullied that bad in the last day and that is what killed them (I didn't notice torn fins on any of them yesterday morning)

Could fish die that quick due to bullying if not showing any signs of stress?
Other thoughts?
Would you be worried about moving the rest of these to display now?

ngoodermuth · May 15, 2019

Could definitely be aggression, both fish are known for inter-species aggression particularly in tight quarters. With the medications now removed they might be feeling “good” and decided to start establishing dominance. If the tank is small and sparsely decorated, the bottom fish on the totem pole has nowhere to go to avoid aggression.

Sometimes, QT’ing a larger fish with the group can cause them to school to avoid the “predator” instead of worrying about each other. Also, making sure you have PILES of PVC pieces and plenty of hiding spots and places to sleep.

I’d also check Ammonia, just to make sure.

ngoodermuth · May 15, 2019

I also usually recommend at least 2-weeks of observation after treatment, just to make sure nothing has slipped through.

sean rand · May 15, 2019

Another reason could be that the sterile tanks temp and selintiy was different that what they came from and they got a shock. The tattered fins could be from after they died the other fish picked at the bodies

Bthomas · May 15, 2019

ngoodermuth said:
Could definitely be aggression, both fish are known for inter-species aggression particularly in tight quarters. With the medications now removed they might be feeling “good” and decided to start establishing dominance. If the tank is small and sparsely decorated, the bottom fish on the totem pole has nowhere to go to avoid aggression.

Sometimes, QT’ing a larger fish with the group can cause them to school to avoid the “predator” instead of worrying about each other. Also, making sure you have PILES of PVC pieces and plenty of hiding spots and places to sleep.

I’d also check Ammonia, just to make sure.

I did check ammonia and it did register some with an api test kit but 2 ammonia badges are showing 0. (it was an old api kit so not sure of its accuracy)
I went on and moved them to the display just in case it was aggression/ammonia.

Bthomas · May 15, 2019

sean rand said:
Another reason could be that the sterile tanks temp and selintiy was different that what they came from and they got a shock. The tattered fins could be from after they died the other fish picked at the bodies

If they had died quick after moving them I may have suspected this but this is 4 days later and they had been acting fine until today

ngoodermuth · May 15, 2019

Bthomas said:
I did check ammonia and it did register some with an api test kit but 2 ammonia badges are showing 0. (it was an old api kit so not sure of its accuracy)
I went on and moved them to the display just in case it was aggression/ammonia.

Sometimes, those badges are slow to show ammonia. I think it can take several hours to register.

Did you notice any rapid breathing in the remaining fish before you moved them?

Bthomas · May 15, 2019

ngoodermuth said:
Sometimes, those badges are slow to show ammonia. I think it can take several hours to register.

Did you notice any rapid breathing in the remaining fish before you moved them?

No. Nothing that I noticed

ngoodermuth · May 15, 2019

Bthomas said:
No. Nothing that I noticed

In my experience if the ammonia is starting to creep up in QT rapid breathing is one of the first signs.

Either way, they are already moved now... so keep us updated on how they do in the DT!

Bthomas · May 15, 2019

ngoodermuth said:
In my experience if the ammonia is starting to creep up in QT rapid breathing is one of the first signs.

Either way, they are already moved now... so keep us updated on how they do in the DT!

Will do. Thanks!

Bthomas · May 15, 2019

Now that I'm looking closer at them in the display I am noticing some torn fins on the others as well so they were definitely picking at each other in quarantine. I'm guessing they died due to aggression. I just thought it was weird to have 2 die together like that when I thought everything was fine..
Hopefully it gets better now that they have more room

Manthanol · May 15, 2019

Bthomas said:
I did check ammonia and it did register some with an api test kit but 2 ammonia badges are showing 0. (it was an old api kit so not sure of its accuracy)
I went on and moved them to the display just in case it was aggression/ammonia.

I would discard the old API kit, old reagents will give you a false positive.