Royal Gramma help!

[JDBC]

Hi all!

I purchased a Royal Gramma from my LFS on Saturday. After being acclimated, the RG hid for most of Saturday, but came out and was darting in and out of LR on Sunday and Monday. It appeared healthy, but I didn't observe it eat. I tried pellets, flakes, brine shrimp, mysis shrimp, and blood worms. It looked at the food, but never reacted. It did poke around on the LR, but not sure if it was eating anything.

This morning when I got up to feed the tank, I didn't see the RG. Came home from work, still no RG. After some searching, I can see the smallest glimpse of his head in the LR. He seems to be laying on his side and breathing heavily, although I'm not sure what a normal breathe rate would be. Photos / videos of him won't show up due to his tricky-to-see location. From what I can see, his scales still look good.

There are two clowns, a fire shrimp, and some soft corals in the tank that have all been doing well.

Ammonia - 0, nitrite - 0, nitrate - 5

Thoughts?

 

[drstardust]

I'd suspect a disease, although he may just be very stressed out too. Things that can take fish down quickly include velvet, brooklynella, uronema, and bacterial infections. This is why we always advocate for quarantine of new fish. Hard to say what could be the situation in your case assuming some toxin isn't present in the tank to have caused this.

 

[drstardust]

Welcome to the forum btw! Sorry your first post was in such circumstances. We'll try to help however we can :)

 

[Flippers4pups]

Welcome to reef2reef!

This^.

How did you acclimate the Gramma?
What other fish do you have and what size tank?

 

[JDBC]

Thank you so much!! I have been lurking since December when I started researching all things saltwater.

 

[VR28man]

I added one to my tank - post QT and acclimation procedures - about a month ago.

In QT (1 week) it didn't eat much, but swam around pretty well pretty soon. Similar for acclimation (3 days). It was only maybe a few days after it entered the general tank population that it started eating, and eating quite well. (LRS reef frenzy usually, but freeze dried mysis and marine one slow sinking micro pellets occasionally too).

Sometimes grammas do weird things, and hide. Mine is still skittish when I'm around, but is otherwise quite active. He has quickly associated me with food and tolerates me. (the fact that every other fish in the tank gathers at the place I always feed them probably helps).

Anyway, keep us posted as to how this goes.

 

[Mastiffsrule]

Welcome to R2R. Maybe we can come up with a plan. As flipper said, give as much info as you can.

I would ask th store first how long they had them. If he was there for a good amount of time most likely he was eating something. I would also ask them what they were feeding. I would try to get some live food if possible like black worms if the store has them. Pellets and flakes probably will not do it for him. Maybe soak mysis or other meaty food in garlic guard if you have. Also try Lrs if available

Getting him to eat and come out will go a long way to identify potentially issues

 

[JDBC]

Welcome to reef2reef!

This^.

How did you acclimate the Gramma?
What other fish do you have and what size tank?

I floated the bag for about 15 minutes, and then (while still floating), slowly replaced the water in the bag with water from my aquarium over about an hour.

The tank is 36 gallons. Over a month ago when my cycle was complete, I added two juvenile ocellaris clowns and they have been fine since. This is the first fish I've added since then.

 

[JDBC]

I'd suspect a disease, although he may just be very stressed out too. Things that can take fish down quickly include velvet, brooklynella, uronema, and bacterial infections. This is why we always advocate for quarantine of new fish. Hard to say what could be the situation in your case assuming some toxin isn't present in the tank to have caused this.

Thanks for your feedback. It was definitely against my better judgement to put it right into the tank.... I KNOW better, but with space concerns I just didn't set up a QT. This might just be my "learn it the hard way" lesson. :/

 

[bigcheese]

@JDBC, Welcome to R2R, hope we can help. I'm by no means on the same level as the Reefsquad, but had a recent experience that was eerily similar.

Before you put the Gramma in, did you do a freshwater dip?
(Edit: This is what happens when you start a reply and get distracted, not realizing more info was written in the meantime. Got it.. no FW dip)


I've noticed a new trend across my LFSes in the last couple months- gill flukes.
I lost a Royal Gramma and Tomini Tang in QT about two weeks ago because I was looking for something like a sesame seed at the bottom of the dip bucket (these were far smaller), and didn't figure it out until too late. The rapid breathing was the key symptom I missed.

 

[JDBC]

Welcome to R2R. Maybe we can come up with a plan. As flipper said, give as much info as you can.

I would ask th store first how long they had them. If he was there for a good amount of time most likely he was eating something. I would also ask them what they were feeding. I would try to get some live food if possible like black worms if the store has them. Pellets and flakes probably will not do it for him. Maybe soak mysis or other meaty food in garlic guard if you have. Also try Lrs if available

Getting him to eat and come out will go a long way to identify potentially issues

Live food is a good idea. Thank you. The store said it was eating frozen mysis, so I bought some plus a few other frozen things to try out, but no luck so far. I don't have any garlic guard or LRS on hand, but can definitely pick some up tomorrow to try to get him to come out and eat. I've been trying to squit small portions of all the things into his little hiding spot with a turkey baster.

 

[JDBC]

@JDBC, Welcome to R2R, hope we can help. I'm by no means on the same level as the Reefsquad, but had a recent experience that was eerily similar.

Before you put the Gramma in, did you do a freshwater dip?

I've noticed a new trend across my LFSes in the last couple months- gill flukes.
I lost a Royal Gramma and Tomini Tang in QT about two weeks ago because I was looking for something like a sesame seed at the bottom of the dip bucket (these were far smaller), and didn't figure it out until too late. The rapid breathing was the key symptom I missed.

I did not do a freshwater dip. :(

Interesting. This is the first I'm hearing about gill flukes so I appreciate you bringing it up. I'm sorry it was too late for your fish. :(

 

[JDBC]

I added one to my tank - post QT and acclimation procedures - about a month ago.

In QT (1 week) it didn't eat much, but swam around pretty well pretty soon. Similar for acclimation (3 days). It was only maybe a few days after it entered the general tank population that it started eating, and eating quite well. (LRS reef frenzy usually, but freeze dried mysis and marine one slow sinking micro pellets occasionally too).

Sometimes grammas do weird things, and hide. Mine is still skittish when I'm around, but is otherwise quite active. He has quickly associated me with food and tolerates me. (the fact that every other fish in the tank gathers at the place I always feed them probably helps).

Anyway, keep us posted as to how this goes.

Thanks for feedback on what you experienced with your Gramma. I'm crossing my fingers this is just one of those weird things. I was hoping that my clowns would be models for eating, but they generally just go for the pellets and don't care too much about anything else I've been trying to offer.

 

[bigcheese]

This is the first I'm hearing about gill flukes so I appreciate you bringing it up. I'm sorry it was too late for your fish. :(

Yeah, it stinks... (esp. since the Grammas were a mated pair) but I saved the rest with a bit of quick action. Now they're all fat, happy, eating well and should be out of QT in about another week.
FW dip for 5 minutes, transfer to a sterile QT tank, a dose of prazi with heavy aeration, and a course of metroplex 24 hours later to stave off any potential infection.
Do a 50% WC after 5 days and repeat.

 

[drstardust]

You're most welcome, and keep us updated. Flukes can be added to the list of possibilities as well, yes.

 

[JDBC]

Sadly, my little guy didn't make it though the night. I woke up to find him in between two rocks this morning. :(

There was a white spot on the top of his head, so I snapped a photo. Any idea what it might be? Should I be concerned about my clowns? They are looking / acting normal as of now.

 

[drstardust]

Sorry :(

 

[bigcheese]

Well that just plain stinks. Sorry for your loss.

To my untrained eye, it looks raised, like an abcess that formed under the skin, and it kinda looks like there might be another under the gill cover. Doesn't look like Ich or velvet to me (small consolation, I know), but it looks more like bacterial infection or a different (larger) parasite.

I'd defer to the big guns for a second opinion and potential course of preventative action.

Personally, I'd be pulling my clowns over to a QT right now, with a FW dip on the way over. Do you have prazipro, metroplex, kanaplex and furan-2 on hand?

 

[drstardust]

I would definitely recommend you fully QT your clowns and leave your tank fallow for 76 days.
Here are some links to help you out.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/how-to-quarantine.189815/

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/my-current-qt-process.483371/

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/fallow-periods-going-fishless.190324/

 

[Easy E]

Grammas are strange fish. They seem to vary a lot in behavior. They are generally listed a easy-to-keep, but I would beg to differ. I've purchased 3 or 4 of them over the years, and was only really successful with one. I think the main problem is that it doesn't take much to stress them out, and once they are stressed, it takes a long time for them to recover. Sometimes they never do. Stressed fish easily succumb to diseases and parasites. Healthy, happy fish seem to be able to fight them off.

In my opinion, a Gramma should either have docile tankmates, or be the first fish added to have the best chance of survival. At least twice I've had them dart into the rocks never to come back out, and eventually die of starvation. When I did catch a glimpse of the fish, it looked like it was healthy but too afraid to even move. I've had Chromis do the same thing.

The one time I was successful, the fish was pretty much by itself at first, but it still took a while before it stopped being afraid of its own shadow. However, once it finally did get acclimated, it ate well and swam around in the open quite a bit. Over time I added more tankmates, some of which were fairly aggressive, but thankfully the shy tendencies never resurfaced.

I guess this is a long-winded way of stating that Grammas may not be the best choice for a beginner. Especially if it's going to be housed long term with a pair of clowns in a smaller tank. I would try to choose something a little more aggressive next time, or set up a separate acclamation tank. Sorry it didn't work out, but don't beat yourself up over it. We've all had to learn some things the hard way.:)