dead clown?

[bkiba]

I came home from work this afternoon and fed my fish and noticed the female of a pair of false percs wasn't coming out for food. Then I saw her on the bottom with hermits all over her. She was definatley dead, no signs of disease (spots, patches, etc). She showed no signs of stress or inactivity last night. No major parts missing.... what the hell?

All the other fish are fine, out and about. All my corals are doing well SPS, zoas, LPS.... I don't have any unexpired test kits (I dont' suspect the water quality due to coral behavior).

What could have caused this??

She has been around for a good 1.5 yrs now, her little boyfriend looks sad . Any ideas please let me know. I also haven't added anything rock, coral to the tank in over 3 months and haven't added fish for at least 5 months.

 

[bkiba]

No ideas?

Oh well RIP little fishy

 

[dc]

That's too bad, I hate losing a fish. It's pretty hard to even make a guess if the fish had no symptons.

 

[bkiba]

I know she was healthy the night before. I fed them and the two clowns in the picture always eat right from my hand. She came up and gave me a nice chomp on my finger, one last bite before biting it I guess =/

 

[angelsil]

I'm sorry for your loss. It's especially heartbreaking when you don't know the reason.

Any chance she could have suffered a physical injury? Any pumps or overflows that might have sucked her up or injured her? It's a longshot but that's the only thing I could think of. Water quality and disease are unlikely to take down a fish that fast if it's been healthy in your tank for 1.5 years.

 

[bkiba]

No my tank is RR so the overflow is your typical teeth type strainer. Other fish of mine have been pulled over into the overflow area but with no harm done. The only "energy source" in the tank is the return line, but this is a spreader-type loc-line and I don't think this could cause and harm.

Who knows, what is the lifespan of false percs anyhow?? for some reason I thought they lived longer than most other small reef fish.

 

[DSMpunk]

Im not sure if anyone is quite sure how long clowns can live, but its a LONG time.

I think a guy here had a percula that was almost 30 years old. So I doubt it was old age.

Sorry for your loss.

 

[angelsil]

Yeah, your normal Ocellaris can easily live 20+ years. Since most are tank-raised these days you're assured of getting them young, too.

 

[bkiba]

well I've been thinking:

There was a temp spike up to 83F the night before, but that was not unusual for my system. 78-80 normally never over 83 during the summer.

Also what may be the culprit (and correctable) I ONLY feed cyclopezee to my tank, the clowns go nuts for it and so do the other fish and I figured all the microfauna were getting fed and therefore the fish could eat the microfauna. There are plenty of pods/amphis/etc in my tank, but I'm thinking maybe this was a vitamin deficiecny???

that is all I've got, other than that maybe inbreeding...

 

[DSMpunk]

I lost my tomato clowns because my tank got too cold one night (the cat unplugged the heater >.<)

All the other fish were fine.