This was a bangaii cardinalfish. It was added to my 80 gallon reef tank (that is 7 weeks old) only 5 days ago. I also have a pretty large emerald crab in the tank along with two clowns and a royal gramma.
This cardinal fish was eating and looked fine the night before. Following morning I went searching and found its body next to where the emerald crab hides out.
I’m told it’s very unlikely that the emerald crab hunted/killed my cardinal fish. It most likely died from shock and scavenged. What doesn’t sit well with that answer is I saw no signs of sickness and looking at the picture attached, could that be a gouge from the crab (how they would hunt and kill)….right behind the head?
Not sure if I should leave the crab or not. Looking for feedback??
Thank you
D
Welcome to Reef2Reef!
I’m afraid nothing can be determined from your picture, the fish had been scavenged. That may not have been related to its cause of death though.
The key with this species is knowing if they were wild caught, pond raised in SE Asia, or tank raised in the US or the EU. There is a virus that infects wild caught and Asian raised ones, resulting in a very high mortality rate (50% or higher). Domestic tank raised ones don’t have this issue unless the dealer puts them into a tank with wild caught ones.
Here is some text I wrote up about this issue:
Banggai Cardinalfish Iridovirus (BCIV)
This fish was originally discovered in 1933 but then lost to science for about 60 years, when the Banggai cardinalfish (
Pterapogon kauderni) was “rediscovered” and began entering the tropical fish trade. Aquarists noted how hardy the species was and that they were very easy to reproduce in captivity. A decade later, the price for wild-caught Banggai cardinalfish had decreased fivefold, but the animals were now considered very delicate, with high losses seen in newly acquired wild fish.
What was the cause of this sudden change in the apparent health of this species in captivity? Poor handling, collection with cyanide (unlikely), and bacterial disease were all suggested as possible reasons for this change. A researcher then published a study showing that the presence of an iridovirus was associated with episodes of mass mortality in newly imported cardinalfish (Weber
et al. 2009). A similar virus has since been isolated from the common batfish,
Platax orbicularis(Sriwanayos
et al. 2013), but a corresponding high mortality in aquarium fish of that species has not been noted, perhaps because many fewer batfish are imported for the pet trade than the ever-popular Banggai cardinalfish.
Since there is no cure for this viral disease, captive-raised fish that were never exposed to wild stock, or fish that have subsequently developed immunity by surviving an infection would be the best choices for aquarists. Avoid inexpensive wild-caught Banggai Cardinalfish. Not only do they have a poor survival record, but they’re also being collected at such a high rate that wild populations are locally threatened with extinction.
