Dragonets - what is their problem?

[Riptide10]

OK last year I had a scooter blenny that was eating fine and doing just perfectly. Then all of the sudden out of the blue he stops eating and sits listlessly on the bottom. Within two days of this he died. The only outward symptom? Kind of a swollen stomach, looks like Malawi Bloat. Which ofcourse can't happen since these aren't cichlids.

Well now my wife's dragonet is acting the same way. Was fine several days ago, had been eating healthily, and now all of the sudden is listeless on the bottom and not eating. Her/His stomach appears to be a bit swollen though it's hard to say for sure. Symptoms are nearly identical with what happened last year to my scooter blenny.

Is there some problem here with these fish that they can just spontaneously crash for no reason like this? These fish have never starved on us and always eat up the brine and mysis we put in there for them.

This makes no sense.

 

[Rondelet]

A bloated abdomen is a sign of bacterial septicaemia. Such infections can take a long time to develop and then kill fish very quickly. If this is the case, or what is bringing it on is hard to say. Bloat can also be caused by nutritional problems. Are you only feeding brine shrimp and mysis? Both are devoid of good nutritional value - especially the brine shrimp (mysis is a little better). While fish really go for both (which makes them great for weaning your fish onto other feeds) you really need to supplement them with vitamins and/or a source of marine lipids/fatty acids (eg. Selcon). You should consider adding other things to the diet - the more variety the better. Also, I believe Dragonets are very particular about diet and usually need a source of live food such as copepods to sustain them.

 

[Riptide10]

Thanks for the reply.

We'll see if they carry Selcon locally and if not maybe get some over the internet if it isn't to much money. I've heard that dragonets are nearly impossible to get feeding on anything but live copepods so we were pretty happy that this fish has such a healthy appetite. We put flake in there but she shows no interest in it at all. I'm assuming she has been feeding on/off on some of the copepods that are present in the aquarium. But ofcourse it's hard to say for sure.

Not sure about this but if she passes we probably won't be getting another dragonet. They seem to be pretty difficult fish such that even if you get them feeding on something - it may not be good enough. Most other fish are a little easier to deal with (clowns for instance).