Odontanthias borbonius acting strange

Rare Angels

Rare Angels

New member
Hello everyone,

I have a Odontanthias borbonius that I got about a month ago and its been fine, eating, swimming around, looking healthy.

On Sunday morning I checked on him and he is sitting on the bottom with all his fins extended and looking scared. He isn't breathing hard and has no signs of parasites on him. He is the only new thing added to the system in the last six months.

I checked the normal water parameters; ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, salinity and temperature and they are at the levels they have always been.

Has anyone else seen their Odontanthias borbonius come down with something like this? I am very familiar, unfortunately, with brook, velvet, ich and the sort from my clownfish but this doesn't seem anything like that.

Any ideas or particular parasites that are common with these guys would be great information.

Thanks for your help.
Dave
 
I got a med one back on March 7th and one lg and two small on Mar 11th. The first couple of days they were all eating fine the around the third day of each new introduction I see the med and lg borb started sitting on the sandbed. A day or two afterward they go in and hide under the rocks. The med borb was never found and the lg borb was found dead two days after it went missing. The two small one are doing fine and eating pellets to frozen and freeze dried mysis and plankton.

I've no idea what caused their death as all my other fishes are doing fine. As long as they've been swimming they are fine and once they started to sit on the sandbed it took only a day before they went into hiding and death seem very quick. I didn't notice any breathing issue either. A sick fish usually take 3-4 day to die but the borbs seem to be much quicker.

I would certainly love to see more updates on borbs that most folks have them for over a month now.

Good luck with your borb!
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12173446#post12173446 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jmaneyapanda
Swim bladder/Decompression injury damage? These are deeper water fish.
Click to expand...

Could very well be and I'm very sure it wasn't flukes or ich. It went from eating well to stop eating the next day then sitting on the sandbed and missing the following day. The chain of event went by so quickly and didn't even had a chance to post to ask but then this was my first deep water fish.
 
Symptom,s similar to what you have described occur with some of the deeper water Genicanthus angels when they arent decompressed properly. I couldnt say for sure without a necropsy, but, it does sound like it.
 
flameangel88,

The sequence of events you desribe is the same for me. I just talked to my wife a little while ago and she said shes thinks the borb is dead. :(

She also said that the only other fish in the tank, a hybrid lemonpeel angel, looks faded in color and has large white spots on it and a white hazy over its body......this is not good.

Dave
 
jmaneyapanda: thanks for the insight. I didn't even think about the bladder/decompression issue as it was swimming fine especially able to hold position head downward very well.


Rare Angels: Sorry to hear about the change in your borb. Again it changed so quickly in my case I actually debated of taking it out a day before it died but was Hoping for miracle. Twice now so I know it's not going to get better once they start sinking to the bottom of the tank. The one that I was able to retrieve the body looked clean and I was able to get to it before any of the inverts and the color was still there.
How are the eyes looking? Is it clean looking dark color or is there a hazy greenish color? I don't know if it was the lighting but toward the very end when it started going toward the bottom of the tank I see greenish eye reflection. I was never positive on this as it was hanging out in the back corner and I couldn't get a good look.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12174185#post12174185 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Rare Angels
flameangel88,

The sequence of events you desribe is the same for me. I just talked to my wife a little while ago and she said shes thinks the borb is dead. :(

She also said that the only other fish in the tank, a hybrid lemonpeel angel, looks faded in color and has large white spots on it and a white hazy over its body......this is not good.

Dave
Click to expand...

Large white fuzzy patches??? Yech, sounds like brook.
 
She made is sound like the spot looked like ich but bigger. The white haze covered the entire fish including the eyes. Hope fully the angel is still alive when I get home.
 
Rare Angels: If the hybrid is up to it do a FW dip and check for velvet or those nasty flukes. If the hybrid is not doing well then something may have come in with the borb and may not be a decompression issue. I can't tell you how often I get fish that come in with flukes.
 
I think you would see decompression issues right from the beginning of having the fish. That is if you know what your looking at. If the fish was swimming properly ands eating I would lean more towards "worms". I know when Borbs first came onto the scene many died becausse of internal worms. A fish with internal worms will not show many signs of illness except for a pinched stomach, but this is common for the healthiest of all anthias when first acquired. As recommended above I would do a freshwater dip or use some malechete. Good luck and keep us updated. regards, Tim
 
I didn't think the stomach was pinched in any way at the time but looking back to the photos it may be a bit but it was certainly not noticeable at the time. I didn't think it was decompression issue but rather bladder got infected because I remember reading that they would have to give it antibiotic after using needle to pinch the bladder.

Here's the picture of the med borb
IMG_2025Large-1.jpg


Large borb
IMG_2077Large.jpg
 
Last edited:
The needle procedure is only done as a last resort for decompression issues. If the fish was decompressed properly the needle is almost never necessary. I'm leaning towards something internal. Did you or the person you got the Borb from give him freshwater dips, formalin, or malechete? Regards, Tim
 
The hybrid is just hanging on so I am not going to try a FW dip, I doubt he will make it to morning.

I believe the borb came with something on it and this killed it and the hybrid was also infected with it. What do you guys use for flukes?

I got the borb from Phisybusiness and his stuff is usually first rate so I didn't do any treatment when I got it.

This have been a heartbreaking loss, these fish were in my 5 year old son tank in his room. He is asking why there are no fish in his tank and wants to know when they are coming back. :(

Dave
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12178012#post12178012 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Rare Angels
The hybrid is just hanging on so I am not going to try a FW dip, I doubt he will make it to morning.

I believe the borb came with something on it and this killed it and the hybrid was also infected with it. What do you guys use for flukes?

I got the borb from Phisybusiness and his stuff is usually first rate so I didn't do any treatment when I got it.

This have been a heartbreaking loss, these fish were in my 5 year old son tank in his room. He is asking why there are no fish in his tank and wants to know when they are coming back. :(

Dave
Click to expand...

I had the same issue from my borb from phishybuisness. It ate the first day but that was it. Died a couple of weeks later. I think it had internal parasites. I lost a couple of fish to internal parasites. They were not eating and were pooping out long white feces. I treated my system with a combination of prazi pro and maracyn 2 for two weeks. Everything looks like they are back to normal again. I would like to try another borb someday.

Scott
 
I never saw these fish until a few months ago, now they are showing up a lot of places, even my LFS. Are they new in the trade?
 
For flukes I use Prazipro and for bacterial infection I use Maracyn 2. I've adminstered Prazipro first then follow-up with Maracyn 2 but I was told that both can be administered simultaneously.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12179437#post12179437 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by eskymick
You might want to read through this thread about flukes and treatments for them ....

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1260067&perpage=25&pagenumber=1
Click to expand...

Yep, the bottle pictured in that thrd is the bottle I've been using for the past year with no ill effect on inverts, shrooms and polyp rocks. Turn the skimmer off for 5 days then do a 20% WC and use high grade carbon to filer out the balance. I recently treated a large female bellus angel for flukes and it had worms around its eyes and I also followed with Maracyn 2. The bellus angel have have recovered and eating well and swimming out in the open.

If the fish is weak to begin with I don't recommend doing the FW dip for 10 minutes and a 4 minute dip you should be able to see if your sick fish has flukes or not.
 
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