Royal gramma hiding all day

[SimonDamminga]

Hello,

For a little over a month I am the owner of a royal gramma. In the beginning he was a bit stressed because of his new enviroment but he seemd to have adapted quickly.
But yesterday I started to notice some strange behavior. He is hiding all day underneath a rock and what looks like heavy breathing. The picure shows one of the spots where he is hiding all day. Sometimes he will move to another spot but thats it. It almost looks like he is afraid of me. It also seems that he is spooked by the other fish in the tank. It almost looks like the behavior when I first added him to the tank. A few days ago he was totaly fine, he had absolutely no problem with the other fish in the tank.

He doesn't even come out when I go and feed. I feed every day at the same time.

The two clowns, hermit and cleaner shrimp seem to be doing fine.
I also added a piece of GSP coral in my tank recently, but it didn't seem to have botherd him.

He doesn't have any discoloration or spots on his body, so I think he is just stressed, but I cant figure out why and what to do about it. His behavior just came out of the blue. I hope you guys can help me a bit with this one.
I'm quite new to fish keeping, and I don't know what is wrong.

I checked my parameters and they seem to be fine:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
Salinity: 1.025sg
Temp: 26C

 

[jgirardnrg]

Mine is a very secretive fish as well, although it does come out to feed. It hides in one of two caves most of the time.

Is yours eating at all?

 

[Royal Gramma Man]

Yeah my Royal gramma is the same. It gets along fine and comes out for food, but generally hides or scares easy compared to his tankmates. As long as you can feed it and you know its eating, that's great. If it isn't eating, try to examine the fish for anything out of the ordinary as it could be sick or have a parasites (not likely) but its worth a check.

 

[Suohhen]

For sure hiding is a pretty normal behavior for that fish but heavy breathing and avoiding meal time is definitely concerning. Fish can certainly display this behavior without being sick but it is also common for a newly added fish to come in with some parasites and for the stress to allow the disease to develop into an outbreak so it is certainly concerning. Let's get the experts in here and if it is at all possible try to get a good clear pic in white light. @Jay Hemdal @vetteguy53081

Also you are the one in the best position to see what is going on since you have eyes on the fish so a good read up on fish disease will help a lot.

Fish Disease Index

This thread contains links to commonly encountered saltwater fish diseases. Please click on the blue links below for more info. :) Fish Diseases 101 provides a brief rundown of both common and not so common diseases. Bacterial Infections Black Ich (turbellarians) Brooklynella (clownfish...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[rhildinger]

Mine did that and it eventually turned out that he had a case of whatever disease causes tail fin rot.

 

[Jeff Jarry reef]

Mine does the same rarely do I see it LoL !

 

[SimonDamminga]

Mine is a very secretive fish as well, although it does come out to feed. It hides in one of two caves most of the time.

Is yours eating at all?

He did eat fine until yesterday. Food went right by him and he did not pick it up. I'll have to see what he does today

 

[SimonDamminga]

For sure hiding is a pretty normal behavior for that fish but heavy breathing and avoiding meal time is definitely concerning. Fish can certainly display this behavior without being sick but it is also common for a newly added fish to come in with some parasites and for the stress to allow the disease to develop into an outbreak so it is certainly concerning. Let's get the experts in here and if it is at all possible try to get a good clear pic in white light. @Jay Hemdal @vetteguy53081

Also you are the one in the best position to see what is going on since you have eyes on the fish so a good read up on fish disease will help a lot.

Fish Disease Index

This thread contains links to commonly encountered saltwater fish diseases. Please click on the blue links below for more info. :) Fish Diseases 101 provides a brief rundown of both common and not so common diseases. Bacterial Infections Black Ich (turbellarians) Brooklynella (clownfish...

www.reef2reef.com

I am certainly aware that these fish like to hide. But mine never did it as bad as he does it now. Most of the time he was free swimming underneath the rocks in the shadow and not the way he does it now.

This is one of the best pictures I could take of him because of where he is hiding. From what I can see his colors look normal. He is breathing quite heavy though.

 

[Suohhen]

I don't see anything on the fish but heavy breathing and the way he is acting could be a sign of flukes. Do you have any prazipro? I wouldn't recommend starting until the experts have a chance to chime in but if you don't have any on hand you may want to pick some up.
edit: by not recommend i mean if you want to do so feel free but I'm just suggesting and if you're not 100% comfortable it's best to wait for the experts.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hello,

For a little over a month I am the owner of a royal gramma. In the beginning he was a bit stressed because of his new enviroment but he seemd to have adapted quickly.
But yesterday I started to notice some strange behavior. He is hiding all day underneath a rock and what looks like heavy breathing. The picure shows one of the spots where he is hiding all day. Sometimes he will move to another spot but thats it. It almost looks like he is afraid of me. It also seems that he is spooked by the other fish in the tank. It almost looks like the behavior when I first added him to the tank. A few days ago he was totaly fine, he had absolutely no problem with the other fish in the tank.

He doesn't even come out when I go and feed. I feed every day at the same time.

The two clowns, hermit and cleaner shrimp seem to be doing fine.
I also added a piece of GSP coral in my tank recently, but it didn't seem to have botherd him.

He doesn't have any discoloration or spots on his body, so I think he is just stressed, but I cant figure out why and what to do about it. His behavior just came out of the blue. I hope you guys can help me a bit with this one.
I'm quite new to fish keeping, and I don't know what is wrong.

I checked my parameters and they seem to be fine:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
Salinity: 1.025sg
Temp: 26C

The rapid breathing and not eating are two key symptoms. The shyness is more a Gramma thing, and it isn't feeling well., so is stressed out.

It could be gill flukes, but I worry due to the rapid onset, that it could be a gill parasite known as Amyloodinium, marine velvet. That is not treatable in a display tank, you would need to move the fish to a treatment tank, and your clownfish would likely eventually become infected.

For gill flukes, we have a product in the US called Prazipro, that can be dosed with invertebrates.

Could you try posting a video?

Jay

 

[Suohhen]

There's the resident expert, also if you can catch the fish and give it a freshwater dip outlined in this link you can confirm if it is flukes.

Flukes – General Guidelines

Many thanks to "Newsmyrna80" for writing this. Reposted with her permission. Some facts: Flukes are not true flukes. They are actually parasitic flatworms belonging to the class of Monogeans. There are 13 families of flukes. However, only three families infect saltwater fish. 1...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[SimonDamminga]

The rapid breathing and not eating are two key symptoms. The shyness is more a Gramma thing, and it isn't feeling well., so is stressed out.

It could be gill flukes, but I worry due to the rapid onset, that it could be a gill parasite known as Amyloodinium, marine velvet. That is not treatable in a display tank, you would need to move the fish to a treatment tank, and your clownfish would likely eventually become infected.

For gill flukes, we have a product in the US called Prazipro, that can be dosed with invertebrates.

Could you try posting a video?

Jay

Thanks for your reply.

In the video you can see how he is breathing. Also I noticed that he has a white spot by/on his eye. Yesterday it was not there. Yesterday he ate as normal.

I live in the Netherlands. I don't think we have something like Prazipro here. Are there any alternatives?

 

[SimonDamminga]

Update: about 30 minutes after my last reply (the one with the video) the fish unfortunately died. I contacted my LFS and they said my other fish probably won't be affected by it. I will monitor my other fish on their behavior. It happend realy fast, and I don't think I could have saved him in the first place as it only started two days ago.

I have to thank you all for the support and help. I certainly know a lot more about fish health now. So thank you very much for that.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Update: about 30 minutes after my last reply (the one with the video) the fish unfortunately died. I contacted my LFS and they said my other fish probably won't be affected by it. I will monitor my other fish on their behavior. It happend realy fast, and I don't think I could have saved him in the first place as it only started two days ago.

I have to thank you all for the support and help. I certainly know a lot more about fish health now. So thank you very much for that.

Sorry to hear that. In the video, I instead looked at the clownfish. It also is breathing faster than it should, so I'm worried that there may be more going on here. One thing - I was siding with the fluke diagnosis due to just the gramma being affected and what seemed to be a slow onset - however, with the clownfish also showing symptoms, and the gramma dying so rapidly, I worry it could be Amyloodinium, marine velvet. That needs to be treated in a quarantine tank with copper though.

Jay

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

I know there are others that will give better advice on the treatment to the heavy breathing and not eating but I’ll share what I know. Royal grammas either hide all day or are social butterflies and love to swim around everywhere while still having a home base. Mine is the second fortunately but it seems like yours is the one that hides all day. This is normal and I wouldn’t expect him to all of a sudden become more active. I don’t think this behavior can be changed because I haven’t seen anything about it. I wish the best for the treatment of these issues.

 

[Frizzy reefnewb]

Mine was great for 3 weeks then did exactly this and sadly died
. in the beginning no issues at all was more hiding in the rocks but definitely came out when food was in the water...if you can’t get them to eat you probably have a big issue imo

 

[SimonDamminga]

Sorry to hear that. In the video, I instead looked at the clownfish. It also is breathing faster than it should, so I'm worried that there may be more going on here. One thing - I was siding with the fluke diagnosis due to just the gramma being affected and what seemed to be a slow onset - however, with the clownfish also showing symptoms, and the gramma dying so rapidly, I worry it could be Amyloodinium, marine velvet. That needs to be treated in a quarantine tank with copper though.

Jay

I see, but I don't have access to a quarantine tank. And I don't have a copper treatment at hand. And I won't be able to get it for at least a few days. So I think i'm going to lose them too. One of the clownfish is already way less active, just laying on the sand bed, and the other is not far behind. I don't think they will make it until tomorrow.

The only thing that has changed in the last week is a piece of coral (my first piece). I asked my LFS and they said I could place it in my tank, no problem. They also stated, today when I called, that it is highly unlikely that the disease came with the coral. But I highly doubt that now. I will call them tomorrow and ask them what's up.

I'm worried now that when I put in new fish that they will face the same issue, and die as well. Is there anything I can do to prevent this from hapening in the future? Is there anything I can do to eliminate marine velvet in my display tank? Maybe I just need some sort of a hard reset or something like that. I realy don't know what to do right now.

Simon

 

[Suohhen]

If you can find a local reefer through a club, Facebook or the like it is possible you could arrange to have them qt for you or sell you the stuff you need.
There is also no guarantee it is disease but it is very important that we figure it out as the only way to eliminate velvet from a display without nuking it is to follow a strict fallow period.

45 Day Fallow periods

I've been doing some research into the "76 day fallow period". I never heard of that prior to coming to Reef2Reef this past summer. I had always used 32 days as the maximum time for a tomont to remain viable under tropical conditions, and then I would round up to 45 days to help ensure that...

www.reef2reef.com

So I suggest you give a good read up on the common diseases that cause heavy breathing as you are the one in the best position to see what is going on with your fish since you have eyes on them. Check out Velvet, Ich, Flukes, and Brook.

Fish Disease Index

This thread contains links to commonly encountered saltwater fish diseases. Please click on the blue links below for more info. :) Fish Diseases 101 provides a brief rundown of both common and not so common diseases. Bacterial Infections Black Ich (turbellarians) Brooklynella (clownfish...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I see, but I don't have access to a quarantine tank. And I don't have a copper treatment at hand. And I won't be able to get it for at least a few days. So I think i'm going to lose them too. One of the clownfish is already way less active, just laying on the sand bed, and the other is not far behind. I don't think they will make it until tomorrow.

The only thing that has changed in the last week is a piece of coral (my first piece). I asked my LFS and they said I could place it in my tank, no problem. They also stated, today when I called, that it is highly unlikely that the disease came with the coral. But I highly doubt that now. I will call them tomorrow and ask them what's up.

I'm worried now that when I put in new fish that they will face the same issue, and die as well. Is there anything I can do to prevent this from hapening in the future? Is there anything I can do to eliminate marine velvet in my display tank? Maybe I just need some sort of a hard reset or something like that. I realy don't know what to do right now.

Simon

You need to leave your tank with no fish in it for 45 to 76 days (longer is safer). The velvet disease dies out with no fish host. Then, you should quarantine all new fish before adding them to your display. My method is listed at the top of this section, but there are other ways to do it.
I can’t say if the coral brought the disease in to your tank or not....
Jay

 

[Uncle99]

Once the last fish dies (sorry) the clock starts......no fish...76 days is very safe, lower risk, keep all else going with very minor feedings.

Unless you can take any of them out now and treat in isolation..