Sudden Bangaii Death

[blecki]

So I've had a couple of these guys over the years and I know they aren't the longest lived fish, rarely getting to 3 years. The giant old ones I see occasionally seem to be the exception and are always pajama cardinals which live a few years longer. But they used to have a reputation for being relatively hardy.

I got two with an order that arrived two weeks ago from drreef; they are the most recent addition. All other fish from the same order are doing fine. In two weeks I observed zero aggression from or towards them. So yesterday morning I observe one perched on the sandbed which is a bit odd for them. Then it vanishes, which is also odd as these are not fish that hide, even at night. Yesterday evening the other stops floating in place and perches on the sandbed. Vanished overnight. Haven't seen a corpse but they are small enough that this is not unusual.

Parameters are great. Skimmer is going, surface agitation, etc, so don't suspect oxygen. UV is running, fish were quarantined, no other fish appear affected so I don't suspect disease unless it's bangaii specific. So what the heck happened?

 

[vetteguy53081]

These fish dont ship the best and often when they get into distress, they rarely recover. They as you may know are active at night and startle easily when a room light goes on or other movement occurs. Once at the point of spiraling, not eating or breathing rapidly, chance of recovery becomes 50/50 or less

 

[blecki]

They as you may know are active at night and startle easily when a room light goes on or other movement occurs.

No, actually, they always seem to be oblivious. They just float there. I've observed quite the opposite, that they just don't really react at all.

I feed pretty heavy but in retrospect I don't know that I ever actually saw them eat. In the frenzy of everyone else I wasn't paying them any particular attention. Maybe they didn't like what I was offering and slowly starved?

 

[Uncle99]

Who else in that glass box?

 

[blecki]

Sailfin tang, scopas tang, 2x engineer gobies, 3x chromis, yellow tail damsel, 2x clowns, six line wrasse, 2x lubocks/tricolor/some kind of fairy wrasse that may or may not be the same species, 2x red stoplight cardinals (maybe, so cryptic I'm never sure if they are alive until I see them again), purple dottyback, coral beauty angel, and maybe a hector's goby. Haven't seen him in a while but he's absolutely tiny and good at hiding.

But never seen any aggression towards the bangaiis. They are all too busy hating each other to pay attention to them.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Sailfin tang, scopas tang, 2x engineer gobies, 3x chromis, yellow tail damsel, 2x clowns, six line wrasse, 2x lubocks/tricolor/some kind of fairy wrasse that may or may not be the same species, 2x red stoplight cardinals (maybe, so cryptic I'm never sure if they are alive until I see them again), purple dottyback, coral beauty angel, and maybe a hector's goby. Haven't seen him in a while but he's absolutely tiny and good at hiding.

But never seen any aggression towards the bangaiis. They are all too busy hating each other to pay attention to them.

I don’t believe aggression, often it’s injury, age and starvation as they eat frozen food diets

 

[Stephen8169301]

I do know these are usually not best kept in pairs my banggai only eats frozen foods as vetteguy stated I kept two but eventually lost one did not know that you should only have one unless bonded pair I bet shipping was prob. my banggai darts around my tank when I’m in there with tweezers barley moves during day rules the tank at night if they really weren’t reacting to much then I’m saying issues during shipment and they were on there way out once in tank