Lions: Necropsy

[lion king]

So there is very strong evidence that Vibrance wiped out my Lion's Reef. I had 3 lions; a zebra, fu manchu, and antennata. I had used Vibrance in another tank, so I think I knew how to use it. Two days after dosing the 90g Lion's Reef, all the lions had cloudy eyes, faded color, and refused to eat. I immediately started a series of water changes and chemipure to pull out what may have incited this response. They ate a week later. The next week they all died within hours of each other. The water parameters had been in check as soon as I started the water changes and began testing. There's another thread going through the experience
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/is-vibrant-trying-to-kill-my-lions.733156/
Understanding some of the clues of the necropsy:
Diet, many debate me about my strong recommendation for a live diet, primarily ghosties and mollies. These fish were with me on average about 8 years. They ate ghosties 2 times a week and mollies once a week. They got fresh tuna, fresh salmon, human grade krill, and silver fish; when they would take it. They did not eat alot of dead food. Check out the pics ot he organs; the liver is a very good color and there is minimal fat deposits. I've seen much more fat in wild specimens. The overall health and longevity in these guys should at least conclude: that ghosties and mollies were a good addition to their diet. I still say go for the dead only if you can provide food with good fat content and shells and bones.

The fu manchu was a female as I suspected, the female has a more slanted more narrow head. The zebra and the antennata were males. This makes sense as through the years there were scrabbles between the two and each of the 2 male fuzzies that were in the tank. the zebra has a classic square head and broad body that would indicate male. The longer sweeping pectoral fins on the antennata would have also pointed toward male.

 

[Han]

That’s terrible. It’s frustrating that we’re constantly being sold products with ingredients that aren’t published. It would be easy to blame vibrant for this but there are countless other products out there with unknown ingredients as well. I’ve recently started dosing KZ sponge power in one of my tanks in an effort to keep sponges that came in on live rock alive, I might stop doing that since I can’t seem to find the ingredients anywhere. Sorry for your losses.

 

[tehmadreefer]

Ya, let’s blame a product you have absolutely zero knowledge if in fact it killed your lions.
Lawyer up and sue em, let us know how that goes....

 

[andrewey]

@lion king . I'm really sorry for your loss. I was following along on the other thread- it's certainly a sad and startling outcome. I have no knowledge of lionfish physiology to know if there is something unique about them that would make them more susceptible compared with other marine animals. Did you see any clues in the dissection as to the cause of death?

 

[tehmadreefer]

Since you also added chemipure, it could have been that as well.

 

[lion king]

@lion king . I'm really sorry for your loss. I was following along on the other thread- it's certainly a sad and startling outcome. I have no knowledge of lionfish physiology to know if there is something unique about them that would make them more susceptible compared with other marine animals. Did you see any clues in the dissection as to the cause of death?

I did see a slight hemorrage at the liver in the antennata and there was blood in the internal cavity in the zebra. You could tell what ever happened was fresh, overall the organs looked really good. I've seen massive hemorrages and even liquified organs before.

Interesting note, the fu was at least 12-13 years old, her ovaries were strunken and dark, obviously from not breeding.

 

[Big G]

The Germans have a word for what we have witnessed here today: Schadenfreude
Sad, really sad.

The number one rule here at R2R is "Be Nice."

 

[lion king]

This fuzzy literally dropped dead. He was very active and a voracious eater. One night he was just not interested in food, the next morning he was dead. I got him as a young adult about 14 months ago, so best guess he was no more than 5-7 years old, way too young. He was treated with antibiotics before I got him, this is classic sudden death syndrome due to medication poisoning. Notice the black edges on the liver, this is not normal.

 

[BeltedCoyote]

+100 on being nice.

sorry for your loss man, your lions have always been stunning in the pictures you post

 

[ZipAdeeZoa]

I'm Sorry for your losses. Do you always see that blackening of the liver with antibiotics or does it seem to vary?

 

[lion king]

I'm Sorry for your losses. Do you always see that blackening of the liver with antibiotics or does it seem to vary?

It varies, I've seen varying degrees of damage from blackening and hemorrages. Copper and antibiotics almost always seem to do some damage. Before we new how bad copper was, I've seen completely liquified mush.

 

[Picasso the Triggerfish]

Im sorry for your lost lionfishes, how fast this process could happen from a completely healthy lionfish that is in the first day of medication to a dead one?

 

[lion king]

Im sorry for your lost lionfishes, how fast this process could happen from a completely healthy lionfish that is in the first day of medication to a dead one?

I rarely see lions live more than a year to a year and a half after treated with antibiotics or exposed to copper either through treatment or suppliers running copper in their systems. The liver damage you see is actually mild to others I've seen. I'm talking dozens of cases I've investigated. Most people know not to treat lions with copper anymore, but when they did, they many times didn't make it out of treatment, that's when I saw melted mush for organs. I wouldn't get a lion from suppliers running copper, depending on how long they are there and the concentration, it decreases their lifespan dramatically. Most times not living more than a year to year and a half.

This particular lion I got from a source that qt's and treated with a gram neg and gram point of sale antibiotic. This was the last lion I got before I made the connection to premature death and antibiotics. I now have several cases that never lived more than a year and a half after antibiotic treatment.

These conclusions were made of lions that were 100% beautiful, active, good eaters; until one day they just stopped and died within a day or two. They were also in tanks with other healthy lions or scorps that were unaffected. All tank parameters were perfect and there had not been any recent additions. Their food source was feeding as many as a dozen other predators that were unaffected.

 

[Picasso the Triggerfish]

Thanks for the information

 

[puckett26]

Sorry for the loss and resurrecting an old thread. I have recently been consumed by Lion fish. I loved those fish ever since I seen Duece Bigolow years ago. However I never kept them because I was afraid of getting stung. Well for my birthday last year in October my wife encouraged an impulse buy, a Dwarf Zebra. Since then I have acquired a few more. I am 100% certain the Dwarf Zebra I purchased was in a system that runs copper 100% of them time. The second was a Dwarf Fuzzy I got from Live Aquaria. So I guess there is a good chance that the one that was treated with copper will die sooner rather than later? Maybe this has absolutely nothing to do with it but the Zebra was never a "voracious" eater as most Lionfish are described. I didnt really notice how little he actually ate until I got the Fuzzy. He eats dont get me wrong and he is growing but just not much as others. A ghost shrimp or 2 every few days. Where are the fuzzy will eat 3 to 4 everyday if I left him. Could that be an indication of an issue to come or just the fact that fuzzy's are bottomless pits?

 

[lion king]

Sorry for the loss and resurrecting an old thread. I have recently been consumed by Lion fish. I loved those fish ever since I seen Duece Bigolow years ago. However I never kept them because I was afraid of getting stung. Well for my birthday last year in October my wife encouraged an impulse buy, a Dwarf Zebra. Since then I have acquired a few more. I am 100% certain the Dwarf Zebra I purchased was in a system that runs copper 100% of them time. The second was a Dwarf Fuzzy I got from Live Aquaria. So I guess there is a good chance that the one that was treated with copper will die sooner rather than later? Maybe this has absolutely nothing to do with it but the Zebra was never a "voracious" eater as most Lionfish are described. I didnt really notice how little he actually ate until I got the Fuzzy. He eats dont get me wrong and he is growing but just not much as others. A ghost shrimp or 2 every few days. Where are the fuzzy will eat 3 to 4 everyday if I left him. Could that be an indication of an issue to come or just the fact that fuzzy's are bottomless pits?

Yes that is sorta an indication. Ones that I have had that seemed to be difficult to feed and always concerned about them eating enough, did seem to die within a few to several months, although no signs of disease.

 

[puckett26]

That sucks. I guess I won’t be suprised when/if it happens

 

[Crustaceon]

Sorry to hear that. I’ve owned many dwarf lionfish and they tend to be really hardy animals. As to what happened, my approach is to look at the function of Vibrant. What does it do to the tank? Most aquarium products aren’t specifically toxic to our critters aside from medication that includes copper or a specifically meant to be toxic to cerain fauna. We know Vibrant is meant to reduce nitrates. We can see the ingredients contains mostly bacteria culture, some aminos, a little bit of vinegar and ro/di. So by looking at this, we know dosing Vibrant is going to cause an increase in bacteria population. But what does THAT cause? Well, drop in ph for one, a slight drop in water oxygenation and in really sensitive fish, elevated exposure to a bacterial bloom and ensuing infection that they might be susceptible to. But is this any different than vodka or vinegar dosing? Not really seeing out tanks are already loaded with bacteria and while the bloom might take longer to develop than with Vibrant, if you dose enough vodka or vinegar, it most certainly will happen. So do I think the bacteria in vibrant is inherently deadly to lionfish? I don’t know for sure, but I kind of doubt it. I definitely know aminos, vinegar and ro/di aren’t. I used to carbon dose with lions in my tank to no ill effect. IMO, it’s something else until we learn otherwise.

 

[lion king]

Sorry to hear that. I’ve owned many dwarf lionfish and they tend to be really hardy animals. As to what happened, my approach is to look at the function of Vibrant. What does it do to the tank? Most aquarium products aren’t specifically toxic to our critters aside from medication that includes copper or a specifically meant to be toxic to cerain fauna. We know Vibrant is meant to reduce nitrates. We can see the ingredients contains mostly bacteria culture, some aminos, a little bit of vinegar and ro/di. So by looking at this, we know dosing Vibrant is going to cause an increase in bacteria population. But what does THAT cause? Well, drop in ph for one, a slight drop in water oxygenation and in really sensitive fish, elevated exposure to a bacterial bloom and ensuing infection that they might be susceptible to. But is this any different than vodka or vinegar dosing? Not really seeing out tanks are already loaded with bacteria and while the bloom might take longer to develop than with Vibrant, if you dose enough vodka or vinegar, it most certainly will happen. So do I think the bacteria in vibrant is inherently deadly to lionfish? I don’t know for sure, but I kind of doubt it. I definitely know aminos, vinegar and ro/di aren’t. I used to carbon dose with lions in my tank to no ill effect. IMO, it’s something else until we learn otherwise.

I'm not sure what you consider hardy, since very few people that I have ever known keep dwarf lions much more than a year. In the 30 years I've been keeping them I see an very high mortality rate, some lfs around here won't even bring them in anymore, saying "they always die". I had these lions for 8 years, that tank had at one time been dosed with nopox for at least 2, maybe 3 years, with no ill effects to the lions. Vibrant is an algaecide masquerading as bacteria, pure and simple.