Fish breathing rapidly, should I worry?

[Kayvon77]

Hello all, this is my first time posting here, so I'm hoping you guys can humor my naivety. I'm fairly new to the reef keeping hobby, although I did maintain a 60 gallon saltwater tank about 10 years ago to no success. So, trying my hand a second time again hoping to have better luck and armed with more knowledge by soaking it all up trolling these forums.

So I digress, I have a Chromis that is currently hanging above a LR and just breathing very rapidly. I don't see any signs of stress or disease on him, but I don't have a trained eye at these things. I'm hoping you guys can give me some pointers as to what to do?

Being fairly new, I set up my tank about three weeks ago. I started with three Chromises, and I experience one casualty through the Nitrogen Cycle. In the last week, I got three more and up until this afternoon everything was fine, except one that was swimming on his side on the substrate and breathing heavily and struggling to keep balanced. I finally fished the guy out and put him in a container where I treated him with a few drops of PraziPro, thinking it may have been some kind of infection or parasite of some sort. Seemed like he was getting worst. He was down the toilet twenty minutes later

Now, I got this one that's breathing rapidly and just staying stationary above the live rock. Please help. I'm afraid I may wake up tomorrow to another dead fish!
Thanks in advance.




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[krullshards]

There's really not enough information here for any kind of definitive guidance. Also, chromis fight a lot among themselves especially in small spaces/tanks so unless you have a fairly large tank having a bunch of them will inevitably lead to loss.

Finally, the fact that you have only had the tank set up for 3 weeks but have 5 fish is a bit concerning because your biological filter may not be up to the task of clearing out that much ammonia and nitrite.

It's been a few days, did the fish you posted about survive? You should post your tank size, and water parameters at least.

 

[Dmorty217]

Did you QT the chromis before adding to the DT? They are notorious for carrying Urenoma

 

[Deinonych]

^^^ +1

A sound quarantine practice is critical to long-term success in this hobby. How did you cycle your tank? It's possible your tank is not fully cycled at only three weeks old. Also, cycling with fish is not a recommended practice in this hobby. I recommend reviewing the stickies in the "New to the Hobby" section on setting up a new tank.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1031074

 

[Kayvon77]

Hi all, sorry for the late reply, but my Chromis passed away the following day and I think became lunch for my Brittle Star

I do think he was being bullied though, cause I have already lost two so far.

As far as water Param goes, everything is on par. No Ammonica, Nitrite, or Nitrate. I started my tank with Live Rock and water from local fish store, so to reduce the cycling time. I think I've gone through it by now, since I've been consistently at 0 Ammonia for the last couple of weeks.

So perhaps it was the stress from the other fish bullying him or just couldn't acclimate ok

I'm shamed to say I did not QT either, but don't know if that would have helped any in this situation.

Thanks all your feedback.


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[ThRoewer]

Heavy breathing can be a symptom of many things:
- bad water quality
- low oxygen
- stress or exhaustion
- an infection of the gills (Monoganean, Amyloodinium, Uronema,...)
If it's just one new fish it's likely one of the last two.

 

[snorvich]

Heavy breathing can be a symptom of many things:
- bad water quality
- low oxygen
- stress or exhaustion
- an infection of the gills (Monoganean, Amyloodinium, Uronema,...)
If it's just one new fish it's likely one of the last two.

Given that is chromis, I guess uronema

 

[snorvich]

OP, you are going way too fast.