deputydawg88
New member
I turned my lights on Monday morning and my LMB was laying on its side on the sand, still breathing but he was looking weak. Over the last week or so he has been hiding in an internal cave in the rock. I did have to move the rock the other day and he came out and I am worried it may be related to the stress of that?
He also looked very thin recently but I had seen him eating, though not as much in the last few days. Before this he would look a bit thin in the mornings but then quite plump by the evening so I thought that may just be the way he looked and hadn't been paying a huge amount of attention to his behaviour other than to make sure I could spot him in the tank, as he liked to find lots of different crevices and holes to hide in with a few select favourites.
I rushed to my LFS as fast as I could because I thought he may need more food in an effort to get some more LMB-specific foods and had my wife keeping an eye on him. She said he started doing summersaults and then resting again, landing on his back and then shortly before he died she said his head swelled up really big and his gills were puffing out quite a lot, as well as his eyes bulging with a blue film over them. He had died before I got home unfortunately.
I tested the water as soon as I saw him like that and they came back with 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and around 2 nitrate, with a SG of 1.024. The LFS also tested a sample and had the same results so there was nothing in the water chemistry to indicate why this might happen. In addition, my mandarin is doing perfectly fine and I would expect him to feel the effects of poor water first, as is my cleaner shrimp.
Does anyone have any ideas?
The only positive I feel I can take from this is that he left the rock and he died in view, so I was able to remove the fish (well, I had my wife do it as I hadn't returned yet) before it started to release ammonia into the tank.
He also looked very thin recently but I had seen him eating, though not as much in the last few days. Before this he would look a bit thin in the mornings but then quite plump by the evening so I thought that may just be the way he looked and hadn't been paying a huge amount of attention to his behaviour other than to make sure I could spot him in the tank, as he liked to find lots of different crevices and holes to hide in with a few select favourites.
I rushed to my LFS as fast as I could because I thought he may need more food in an effort to get some more LMB-specific foods and had my wife keeping an eye on him. She said he started doing summersaults and then resting again, landing on his back and then shortly before he died she said his head swelled up really big and his gills were puffing out quite a lot, as well as his eyes bulging with a blue film over them. He had died before I got home unfortunately.
I tested the water as soon as I saw him like that and they came back with 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and around 2 nitrate, with a SG of 1.024. The LFS also tested a sample and had the same results so there was nothing in the water chemistry to indicate why this might happen. In addition, my mandarin is doing perfectly fine and I would expect him to feel the effects of poor water first, as is my cleaner shrimp.
Does anyone have any ideas?
The only positive I feel I can take from this is that he left the rock and he died in view, so I was able to remove the fish (well, I had my wife do it as I hadn't returned yet) before it started to release ammonia into the tank.
