Death Autopsy - Any idea how to save the remaining fish?

[elee901]

Hi all,

This Sunday 2/9 I bought a Tailspot blenny from a store in Oakland that quarantines their fish for 2 weeks. Initially when I put the blenny in my 12 gallon nano tank, he seemed to be adjusting well, pecking at the algae film that grew on rocks and the glass. However, I noticed Tuesday night 2/11 he was breathing quickly and lethargic. This 2/12 morning I saw he was still breathing quickly and my clownfish, which was eating fine yesterday, was also breathing quickly and had a reduced appetite.

Recognizing something was wrong, I did a 50% water change this morning. As I was working from home, I saw the blenny do a single death spiral, then drop down dead. From the moment of noticing first symptoms to death was about 12 hours.

All of the coral is doing fine and my tank had been stable for a good 6+ months. Any idea what could have cause this and what I can do, if anything, to save my existing Clown and Firefish? Both of them are breathing heavier than usual. They both still eat a bit, but definitely less than usual.

I tried to do the responsible thing by shelling out $100 bucks for a quarantined fish, but that may have backfired and could cost me all of my fish. I suspect the blenny was still infected and got the rest of the tank sick. Looking at the blenny's body, there are no white spots like I would normally see with ick, however I noticed the color of of the fish seems to have faded a lot. Not sure if that's just because he's dead. This photo was taken a minute after I saw him die. I know velvet is fast acting but I would have expected to see a dotted white film on the corpse. Any autopsy would be appreciated.

Parameters pre-water change this morning:
Salinity: 1.025
Temp: 77F
Phosphates: .03ppm
Alkalinity: 9.5
Nitrates: ~2ppm
Magnesium: 1450ppm
Calcium ~400

 

[Mr. Seahorse]

Did you get it from High Tide Aquatics? I recommend setting up a qt tank with copper power to try and save the fish.
I've had this happen before and all my 6 beloved fish died
Best of Luck

 

[Darkxerox]

Any fish aggression? How did you introduce the fish? Looks like it's missing a chunk of tail. Firefish have a pretty similar body structure and I have heard of them fighting blennies before. Doesn't look like disease from this photo (maybe take others if your clown since they show it easier) and it is almost impossible to introduce fish parasites with the QT process Kenny runs.

 

[elee901]

Did you get it from High Tide Aquatics? I recommend setting up a qt tank with copper power to try and save the fish.
I've had this happen before and all my 6 beloved fish died
Best of Luck

Yeah. Not trying to throw shade at anyone. Just super surprised because I thought the quarantine was supposed to avoid this problem.

 

[elee901]

Any fish aggression? How did you introduce the fish? Looks like it's missing a chunk of tail. Firefish have a pretty similar body structure and I have heard of them fighting blennies before. Doesn't look like disease from this photo (maybe take others if your clown since they show it easier) and it is almost impossible to introduce fish parasites with the QT process Kenny runs.

No aggression that I observed! I got plenty of videos of them all chilling together in the water column. The curious clown would occasionally swim right up to him to look at him but never once did he nip or do any chasing.

But to your point, I didn’t realize some of the tail was missing. I just checked a video and can confirm his tail was fully intact as of yesterday evening. So something must have happened last night. But that doesn’t explain why the remaining two fish are breathing hard

 

[Darkxerox]

Any photos of the other fish from today? Also what's your water source for top off and mixing?

How did you introduce the fish? Acclimation?

Velvet would have a telltale powdered sugar look on all the fish, uronema would look like a red wound, cryptocaryon would be pinpoint white spots, bacterial or fungal infections would look fluffy. Of those only velvet would move that quickly.

 

[dswong01]

How long did have the other fish?

 

[elee901]

Here’s a picture of the clown I just took. No apparent signs of any markings that I see. His breathing is still elevated but slowed from this morning. The water change may have helped.

I introduced the blenny on Sunday by first floating the bag for about 20 minutes, then I equalized the water over about 30 minutes by adding about 4 ounces at a time. I know it’s a little fast, but the blenny actually was doing well the first two days. A small amount of the water from the bag did enter my tank because I couldn’t get the net in to fish out the blenny from the bag. Wasn’t much though. Maybe 6oz of the bag water.

Water source is RODI water from a pump I bought. Been using it since June.

Also 2 other thoughts.

1. Is it possible there could have been some heavy metal contamination? I was using a razor to clean the glass and it started to get a bit rusty. It would never be submerged longer than 30 seconds.

2. I’ve been dosing carbonate, nitrates, calcium and magnesium. I dose the carbonate and nitrates every 3 days which I doubt is the problem but I only dose the magnesium and calcium about once a month. I brought up the magnesium rather quickly on Sunday night, moving from 1320 to 1450. No adverse reactions to the corals so I would be surprised if the fish got sick from that.

 

[elee901]

How long did have the other fish?

About 5 months. Bought them in early September. Tank age is 11 months. Started in march last year.

 

[richiev]

To confirm my understanding, is the firefish also still alive?

 

[elee901]

To confirm my understanding, is the firefish also still alive?

He is! And in fact the fire fish and clownfish seems to have improve nearly back to normal within the 4 hours since I made the post! (Knock on wood because things can change fast)

Still baffled at the death of the blenny but the other two are behaving normally and eating again.

I’m now wondering if there was some fighting or bad blood that was creating mutual stress amongst the tank mates. The weird thing is that I saw all 3 of them swimming together normally on Sunday and Monday. Nothing like the aggression I’ve seen before when I had a little damsel fish.

 

[richiev]

He is! And in fact the fire fish and clownfish seems to have improve nearly back to normal within the 4 hours since I made the post!

Still baffled at the death of the blenny but the other two are behaving normally and eating again.

I’m now wondering if there was some fighting or bad blood that was creating mutual stress amongst the tank mates. The weird thing is that I saw all 3 of them swimming together normally on Sunday and Monday. Nothing like the aggression I’ve seen before when I had a little damsel fish.

I advocate for HTA, but also acknowledge errors or issues can happen. However, I know in the past I've had instances where I've seen issues with fish that were probably be just thinking there's issues with fish. Clowns are weird, so there's always a chance that when you look with a concerned eye at them they look concerning even if they're normal.

Given it looks to be an established tank with sand and some rock, that seems to rule out things like an ammonia spike from the tank not being able to handle one more fish.

Regarding heavy metals, which presumably means copper, I don't think Kenny does copper in the front display/sales tanks. Unless you got one from the back that was just finishing quarantine (he would've likely mentioned it) I would guess it's not from a bit of water getting in. Also if it was that, I'd think you'd be seeing dead inverts/coral versus fish issues.

Your acclimation seems fine. I personally stopped the complicated, long lived or drip, acclimation process a long time ago, and have personally not seen any higher amount of loss. Though temp acclimation I for sure do (temp, a couple sweaty l water switches, toss in by pouring into my hand in a glove then into tank is my current process).

Hard to guess what it was. My sympathies. Sucks for them to die and frustrating to buy a safe fish for extra money and then it die. Better than buying a sick fish and it dying and taking out your tank though, if that's any consolation.

 

[elee901]

The fish I got has finished quarantine on Feb 2, so he was actually out of QT for a week before I picked him up. I agree I don’t think the front tank is dosed with any meds but I did see there were a lot of other fish in there with the blenny. All it takes is one sick one to get through quarantine to infect the rest of them.

Maybe I could be hyper sensitive to heavy breathing in the clown and firefish but I’ve seen it before with the flared gills and it was a precursor to losing many fish when I first started.

Money aside, I’ll consider it a win if the firefish (Flash) and clown (Buster) aren’t harmed. RIP Lenny the blenny.

I’m almost wondering now if my tank can even sustain 3 fish. The clown, blenny and firefish all lived in different parts of the water column which made me think it was fine, but I’m not sure if it’s worth the risk trying to introduce a third fish.