post meta death

K

Kathy55g

In Memoriam
I've been having this phenomenon with my home broodstock's larvae. I get one or two deaths daily, usually smaller juveniles, looking ematiated. I have a hatch that is about 2 months old, and I am still getting daily deaths. I can't figure out what is the problem.

The rest of them are normal looking active, eating well with fat bellies after every feeding, three times daily.

I siphon their tanks twice daily, and change the mechanical filter daily, and give the system water changes of about 20% a week, a little every other day. Every week, I scrape the excess algae off the floor and front glass.

Last night I lost about 10 of the two and half week old juvies. The ones still alive are fully metamorphosed, with 2 or three white bands.

What am I missing?

Thanks in advance,
Kathy
 
While waiting for the pro's to respond I'll chime in here, if it is only the smaller and weaker ones I don't think I'd panick. I occasionally lose one now and then well after met but it's always the tiny ones that are way behind the others so I figure it's just natures culling process.
 
Assuming there are no pathogens in the system and all your water params are in order,,,could it be diet?

I'm only a rank amateur on my fifth batch of ocellaris but I've never lost a single fish after about day 5. I'm feeding rotifers 'til day 8,,,,, BBS from day 6 (PM) until day 30 (move to growout),,,,and cyclopeze from day 21. Now they're in grow-out they seem to eat everything I put in there.

Could it be a BBS cyst thing? Seems like an intestinal blockage might take a few days to kill a fish.
 
Don't know. My feeding plan is similar to yours. Except that they get a mix of dry foods: Otohime, formula 1, and cyclopeze with their brine shrimp. I decapsulate, so that is not an issue.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7542088#post7542088 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Juck
...I'm only a rank amateur on my fifth batch of ocellaris but I've never lost a single fish after about day 5. ...
Click to expand...

THAT is incredible. Five batches, 100% survival after day 5! Incredible!
 
NO, no, no,,, never lost a fish AFTER day 5 sounds great but overall I'm still doing horribly.

My best survival percentage from hatch is about 50% ,, I'm still having big deaths during the first 36 hours,,,, like 300+ dead larvae per hatch is abysmal.

I think a lot of my 'success after 5 days' is down to the decapsulated hatching Brineshrimp eggs I got from Brineshrimpdirect.com ,, the hatch rate is amazing,, not seen a single floating cyst.
 
It's funny,, I always look at that pie-chart in Wilkerson's book about how many clown larvae are lost to different causes and I laugh,,,, my pie-chart would look a lot different,,2 colors,,,50% survival and 50% death pre-meta.
 
Kathy, are these the same clowns that got shorted on the bbs early on, I think you moved to otto only or something like that. Or was that a previous batch? While we patiently wait for someone who actually know's what they are talking about (hint hint guys) could you be seeing deaths now as a result of something (nutrition, poor wq or something) that occured earlier on? Any problems a week or two ago?
 
Actually no. the early weaners are months old, and they were the ones from the friend's broodstock. All of my home broodstock got lots of bbs, and oto and ON formula 1 in long overlapping periods.

Interestingly, the ones that did not have the slow marching death are the ones that I killed a large number early on due to operator error, temp fluctuations etc. They also were the first early meta group. I kept them at 84 degrees after the temperature snaffu their first day. They metamorphosized starting on day 6.
 
Ok then, and it's just one group of fish that are dying, right? Can yo slap together an isolated tank for them and try an experiment?
 
I don't know if it is a coincidence, but I put a PURA pad filter over the bioballs a week ago, and for the past few days, no deaths have occurred. It's either that or the power outage that cured them,


I think it is the filter....my water looks nice and not yellow, too.
K
 
Here is my thought process in this order:

Low O2 levels (You will see this as a slow die off and die off is increased as water quality deteriorates. Poor water quality decreases water's ability to hold o2.)

Water quality (Weak fish are a quick water quality indicator. Since you have them on a system is there any chance they got exposed to medication residue?)

Mechanical Damage (Heater exposure and High flow damage are an example.)

Fighting Damage (Self explanitory)

Brine shells or somethink choking them (If they look like they are gagging or trying to eat, but spit things back out look to this as a problem. Make sure the eggs are completely decapped and keep an eye on the oto as it may be a hard batch.)

Malnutrition of the fry (Wrong sized foods or food with improper nutrients can cause slow die off. Sounds like you have a well balanced diet though.)

Malnutritiion of the parents (Low parent nutrition will lead to weak fry, thus increasing mortality.)

Hope that helps. Sometimes it just happens with a batch and will clear out with the next one...
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7872021#post7872021 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Atticus
Here is my thought process in this order:

Low O2 levels (You will see this as a slow die off and die off is increased as water quality deteriorates. Poor water quality decreases water's ability to hold o2.)

Could be. I use trickle filter and airlines with airstones in each of the tanks. But if water quality was poor, it would not matter. The die offs happened before, but not to this extent, and I have recently maxed out the # of fish I can hold in this system, so there may have been pollutants despite the frequent water changes.

Water quality (Weak fish are a quick water quality indicator. Since you have them on a system is there any chance they got exposed to medication residue?)

No medication except I tried some oxytetracycline in their food for about a week. Could be water quality, see above.

Mechanical Damage (Heater exposure and High flow damage are an example.)


No heater in tank. No high flow either.

Fighting Damage (Self explanitory)

My Ocellaris are generally peaceful, although they do the feeding frenzy thing.

Brine shells or somethink choking them (If they look like they are gagging or trying to eat, but spit things back out look to this as a problem. Make sure the eggs are completely decapped and keep an eye on the oto as it may be a hard batch.)

Not brine shells, there are none.

Malnutrition of the fry (Wrong sized foods or food with improper nutrients can cause slow die off. Sounds like you have a well balanced diet though.)

I thought about this one, too. Backing down on the size did not help the situation. Although it seemed that the smaller fish died, there were still small ones the same size swimming happily.

Malnutritiion of the parents (Low parent nutrition will lead to weak fry, thus increasing mortality.)

I don't think so. My parents get a variety of great food, and lots of it.

Hope that helps. Sometimes it just happens with a batch and will clear out with the next one...
Click to expand...

Thanks for the ideas. Many of these could be correct. Any others want to chime in?
Kathy
 
Tank walls should be completely black, (i've read) fish have trouble orienting themselves and hunting and generally get stressed by open glass. Also I think ORA uses this trick to get black OCs.

You probably now this already. I think Wilkerson or "somebody else I read" is pretty adamant about dark walls on tanks.
 
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