Ocean_dreamer89
Community Member
Hello all!
It’s a sad morning for me as I woke up to my first fish casualty. My hopes for this post is to get any advice as to what may have happened so that I can prevent it in the future. It’s a bit of a long story but I’ll try to be concise.
My royal gramma was the first fish in my tank, which is now a year old. The only other occupants are two clowns that I got as young juveniles and have been thriving and growing. Still are.
The problem started about a month ago, maybe two. I noticed that my gramma was staying in his cave more and more and wouldn’t come out to eat anymore. I started to get very concerned about three weeks ago when I started to not see him at all. Prior to that I had noticed if he did come out, he wasn’t swimming normally. Just sitting on the bottom and not able to swim upwards. When I got very concerned that he was going to start dying of starvation, I made the decision to quarantine him. Getting him out of the tank was a struggle, as I had to scare him out of the cave in order to get to him. I’m sure he was thoroughly stressed through the process. I transferred over some media that had been in the back of my tank for the year it’s been up, so it was thoroughly seeded with bacteria. I acclimated him to the QT and released him. Shortly after that, my Seachem badge started registering ammonia. I promptly put in prime and added more bacteria to the tank for two days, with 50% water changes, before it went back down to a safe level.
I then observed him for about four days. It was the same as in the other tank. He stayed on the bottom not able to swim properly and would not eat. I did not notice any trauma to him or any other signs of disease. It’ appeared he was breathing fine as that was really the only way I was able to tell if he was still alive sometimes. I began Prazipro treatment and ordered Kanaplex and Furan-2 to have on hand.
Fast forward to yesterday. By this point, he’s been in QT for just over a week. I was doing my regular check on him, when he suddenly floated to the top. He sat there for a few seconds before sinking back to the bottom, never truly swimming. However, he moved around the bottom more than he had for awhile, so I was optimistic that the Prazipro was working. Then I went down to the tank this morning and found him dead. After taking a few minutes to be sad about him, I removed him so I could look at his body. Still no signs of disease. He’s looks skinnier than he used to be, but I don’t believe starvation was the cause. I noticed a very small trauma site on one of his side, but it didn’t look inflamed or infected. Any thoughts as to what I could have done better or maybe the cause? The other fish look and act completely fine and seem to be very happy.
I’ll attach some pictures.
It’s a sad morning for me as I woke up to my first fish casualty. My hopes for this post is to get any advice as to what may have happened so that I can prevent it in the future. It’s a bit of a long story but I’ll try to be concise.
My royal gramma was the first fish in my tank, which is now a year old. The only other occupants are two clowns that I got as young juveniles and have been thriving and growing. Still are.
The problem started about a month ago, maybe two. I noticed that my gramma was staying in his cave more and more and wouldn’t come out to eat anymore. I started to get very concerned about three weeks ago when I started to not see him at all. Prior to that I had noticed if he did come out, he wasn’t swimming normally. Just sitting on the bottom and not able to swim upwards. When I got very concerned that he was going to start dying of starvation, I made the decision to quarantine him. Getting him out of the tank was a struggle, as I had to scare him out of the cave in order to get to him. I’m sure he was thoroughly stressed through the process. I transferred over some media that had been in the back of my tank for the year it’s been up, so it was thoroughly seeded with bacteria. I acclimated him to the QT and released him. Shortly after that, my Seachem badge started registering ammonia. I promptly put in prime and added more bacteria to the tank for two days, with 50% water changes, before it went back down to a safe level.
I then observed him for about four days. It was the same as in the other tank. He stayed on the bottom not able to swim properly and would not eat. I did not notice any trauma to him or any other signs of disease. It’ appeared he was breathing fine as that was really the only way I was able to tell if he was still alive sometimes. I began Prazipro treatment and ordered Kanaplex and Furan-2 to have on hand.
Fast forward to yesterday. By this point, he’s been in QT for just over a week. I was doing my regular check on him, when he suddenly floated to the top. He sat there for a few seconds before sinking back to the bottom, never truly swimming. However, he moved around the bottom more than he had for awhile, so I was optimistic that the Prazipro was working. Then I went down to the tank this morning and found him dead. After taking a few minutes to be sad about him, I removed him so I could look at his body. Still no signs of disease. He’s looks skinnier than he used to be, but I don’t believe starvation was the cause. I noticed a very small trauma site on one of his side, but it didn’t look inflamed or infected. Any thoughts as to what I could have done better or maybe the cause? The other fish look and act completely fine and seem to be very happy.
I’ll attach some pictures.
