Can anyone identify cause?

jayball

Active member
So I had three of these guys come in yesterday, that is a pic of the last one. They all came in lethargic but this last one would at least hide instead of just lay there. None took food, even black worms wiggling in front of their faces( lfs was out of love brine)

I do not know much about this so I am not sure if this is from shipping stress or something else.

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Thanks.
 
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We may need some more information:
What kind of fish is this?
Where did you get them from?
If mail-order, how long where they in shipment?
Do they breathe heavily?
Are they upright or laying on their sides?

Also, it would help if you could get some better pictures.

As for what it could be:
- Ammonia burn
- bacterial infection
- Brooklynella
- Amyloodinium
 
We may need some more information:
What kind of fish is this?
Where did you get them from?
If mail-order, how long where they in shipment?
Do they breathe heavily?
Are they upright or laying on their sides?

Also, it would help if you could get some better pictures.

As for what it could be:
- Ammonia burn
- bacterial infection
- Brooklynella
- Amyloodinium

What kind of fish is this? Zebra barred Dartfish
Where did you get them from? liveaquaria
If mail-order, how long where they in shipment? less than 24 hours
Do they breathe heavily/Are they upright or laying on their sides? They start upright than once they lay on sides they are breathing heavy.

Also, info as requested by the sticky:

1. How old is this aquarium?
2. If less than six months old, what is ammonia level?

6 month old cycled QT, no ammonia detectable (Red sea pro)

3. What is SG of this aquarium? How measured?

1.018 matched to Live aquaria shipping salinity (Verified with refractometer)

4. When was the last fish added to this aquarium?

Added yesterday, 3 zebra barred darts. Only fish

5. Was it quarantined? If so, how? And how long? Was it prophylactically treated? How?

Added to QT 36 hours ago

6. If you are using a copper based medication, which one? How often do you measure level? When?

N/A

7. If you are using hyposalinity, how did you calibrate your refractometer?

N/A

8. Please describe in detail, the appearance of the fish? If there is one or more pimples, are they lumpy? What color?

Some whitish streaks seen in pic. the first one to die came out of the bag with a reddish mouth but the others have not exhibited that.

9. Please describe the behavior of the fish as best you can. Is it acting reclusive? Is it always up towards the top of the aquarium? Is it avoiding light? How active is the fish?

The remaining fish started hiding in the PVC elbows, then progressed to where tho other fish started by laying on the glass. They were lethargic out of the bag and all three have refused food )( live blackworms, pe mysis, cyclop-eeze)

Thanks in advance!!
 
Contact Live Aquaria right away to report this. Good pictures help to make your case.

In my experience, from the way they behave, there is not much hope that they come back but there are a few things you can try:
- Lower the salinity to about half of normal (1.018 ... 1.016 g/L). You do this easiest by taking about half the water out of the QT and fill it back up slowly with RO water.
- make sure the temperature is not higher than 25°C
- ideally put a skimmer in/on the tank to saturate the water with oxygen. At a minimum add an airstone, but make sure there are not too many fine bubbles floating around that could clog the fish's gills.
- add some Seachem Stress Guard

Normally I would recommend giving them a formalin bath, but in their condition it would likely make it worse.
If you have an antibiotic like Amoxicillin (FishMox) or Ciprofloxin (Cipro, FishFlox) add it to the tank as directed.
 
Can anyone identify cause?

The temp is good and I am dropping the salinity a bit more, I have an airlift filter but had an extra output on my air pump so I added an air stone. The only anti microbial I have on hand is metro+ (metronidazole, chelators, and slime coat stuff) so I added that. I figure at this point I am at the everything and the kitchen sink stage.

Thank you for your response, fingers crossed.
 
Usually, when fish are visibly sick, breathing heavily. unresponsive to food and on top of that laying on the ground on their sides, they are close to kicking the bucket.

I just had a starcki damsel die on me. The Saturday delivery got delayed to Monday. One did pretty good and recovered quickly but the other one was breathing heavy and laying on its side when not exposed to flow. It lived until Tuesday afternoon, but in the evening I found it dead. And this fish looked besides the heavy breathing otherwise fine.
Sometimes, despite best affords, you just can't save them.
 
So I left for about 36 hours for thanksgiving and I came back to a much better looking fish.

I have to guess that the metro helped. Now to get him to eat, I'll try the lfs again to see if they have live brine.

Thanks for your help.
 
<a href="http://s1294.photobucket.com/user/jayball19/media/592BF06B-193E-4A40-AF3F-8D45678848EA_zps7pikjoak.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/b613/jayball19/592BF06B-193E-4A40-AF3F-8D45678848EA_zps7pikjoak.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 592BF06B-193E-4A40-AF3F-8D45678848EA_zps7pikjoak.jpg"/></a>

So I received two to replace the two that died. One of those have passed and here is the original survivor and the remaining replacement. I am hoping he will come around now that he is swimming but he looks bad and still not eating. Slime coat is thick and milky, poor color, not keeping the body straight unless he is actively swimming and the fins could look better. The original is still strong and eating voraciously, so that is a plus.

I am done purchasing fish online, if I can not see it in person I will not buy it.
 
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