The Frogfish Files

[Mr. Ugly]

Lost my frogfish last night

I've had him since the beginning of last April. He'd been eating a variety of frozen foods(shrimp, silversides, white fish) since that first month.

He had stopped eating almost 3 weeks ago, and wasn't interested in food. Otherwise, he just went about his usual behavior until less than a week ago.

At that time, he stopped hanging out at his usual locations and started finding new spots... mostly in caves. In the last couple days, he started hanging around upside down more. He normally liked to stay right side up.

In the last 2 days he started swimming around more... especially last night. So I suspected he was going to go soon. Last night he did the loops and barrel rolls that they do, and he was dead within an hour or so of that time.

He had no visible external injuries. His eyes were clear. No labored breathing. No infections that I could see. His stomach did look rounder than I expected, for not having eaten, but it wasn't bulgey or anything.

No recent disruptions to the tank. Stable temp at 79 degrees. It's an SPS/LPS/Zoa lagoonal reef with fuge, skimmer, and sump.

Really curious death, with no obvious clues. I wondered if he had some kind of internal problem, and thought about dissection/autopsy. I really didn't want to do it, but the frog deaths are so lacking in info.

I finally broke down and did the "autopsy" to look for problems, hoping to find something useful

Starting off, the skin was surpringly tough... didn't realize it would be like that.

Internal organs all looked normal. Stomach was empty. No weird colorations, or cysts, tumors, sores, etc. Air bladder was inflated. Gall bladder looked normal. Mesentery looked normal. Liver was flat, smooth, and tongue shaped, with one larger lobe and one smaller one. Liver was yellowish/tan/pink colored w/o any lesions, weird marks, fat globs or anything like that. Frogfish tend to have good sized livers(for those who haven't eaten ankimo sushi). But the liver wasn't bulgey or anything. Didn't see anything special about the reproductive glands. Coelom cavity had no weirdnesses either.

No signs of parasites, worms, flukes etc. Gills looked nice and pink/red and clean. No flukes etc.

So it was interesting in that I could see no obvious problems internally. I had expected to find signs of infections, parasites, digestive blockage, cysts, tumors, fatty liver.... but there were no signs of any of these.

Didn't do any other exploring. Wasn't too happy to cut him open, but it wasn't so bad once I got going and focused on getting info.

Hope this helps.

 

[Lordhelmet]

sorry to here about your loss. it was a really cool fish. are you going to get another one or are you going to put some other fish in that tank?

 

[DrBegalke]

Great thread... I just purchased my first frogfish, hope to post a pic for a more definitive I.D. soon....

 

[Fishy1]

Sorry It's always sad when they go.......I've had three and my friend has had two. They always seem to go around the two year mark. The one I have now is a juvenile painted and I'm going to try a different approach. My friend subscribes to the "Coral" magazine. I think that is the right name. It's the one that comes out every other month and is transcribed from German into English. Anyway there is an author/doctor who wrote an article about Frogfish in this months magazine. She said the reason they die in captivity is that they slowly starve to death even when eating thawed frozen food, ie. shrimp, silversides. They eventually will start breathing hard and stop eating altogether. It is critical at that time to get some "live" food into their diet. According to her, they are starving for "live" food! She has successfully kept frogfish alive for over three years feeding them guppies that are gut loaded with marine food and acclimated to low salinity saltwater. I'm going to get a copy of the article from my friend and try out what she says. I currently have a 10 gallon set up with 2 male and 8 female guppies. "Charlie" is eating thawed frozen so it isn't a problem for me until the guppies are acclimated.......over an 8 to 10 week time period. I plan on feeding him a guppy or two a week plus the thawed frozen.......hope I have success doing this. If you have a copy of this months magazine, you might want to read up on what she has to say I found this info very intersting.......

Janey

 

[Mr. Ugly]

Hmmm... very interesting.

Reefcherie has had some of the best success for longevity. Live food all the way too. I'll have to go that route for my next frog.

 

[reefD]

not sure if i posted a picture on this thread in the past but here's "shaggy" my angler!

 

[reefD]

 

[reefD]

he is a shaggy angler hispidus antenereus sp (spelling off)
he is constantly swimming around or walking around the tank. they are cpnsidered one of the most active anglers. very rare to see him in the same spot for more than 10 minutes. here he is swimming around midday

 

[NorthernCF]

That is an atractive fish!

 

[reefD]

heres a better close up picture.

 

[reefD]

hummm that is some interesting info. so what exactly is the difference with feeding frozen food? the nutrition is the same so whats the exact difference? just wondering is it somethging with the fish just getting depressed from lack of live food?

 

[Mr. Ugly]

Ok, some more info...

I'm thinking the yellow color in the liver might be something of note. I've not seen a known healthy frogfish liver before... but I did think at first that it was odd that it wasn't more reddish.

I googled some more info on enlarged liver, liver color, etc.

Some things of interest:

* piscine hepatic lipidosis
* iron deficiency

I initially didn't think the liver was all that big, but it was the only thing in the body cavity that would account for the slightly full looking belly of my frog.

If we go with enlarged liver, it could make sense.

The yellow color can be an indicator of liver failure and build up of bilirubin. Would give a kind of jaundice.

Interesting note - I hadn't mentioned previously, but my frog did have a faint yellow cast to the skin color in the last 3 days. I thought it was my imagination at first, and then I thought it was just doing the color change thing that frogs can do.

Now I'm thinking more along lines of dietary problem, leading to liver failure.

He'd been eating 2x a week, and not until he was way stuffed or like that. But maybe it was a diet issue..

 

[Mr. Ugly]

Hmm... mycobacteriosis, as in the pdf Uber posted, could also cause liver problems.

I would have done tissue slides if I had the setup

 

[Reefcherie]

Mr Ugly - I'm really sorry to hear about your loss! Somehow I became unsubscribed to this thread and just now saw this.

Fuggly is at the 28 month mark in my tank. Unfortunately, about 4 days ago he started acting disoriented and was either pointed nose down or belly up - though still breathing. If I "righted" him, he would stay that way for a while. He wasn't breathing heavily. He'd run out of his shrimp (I feed him gut-loaded live marine white shrimp) about a week before and I've theorized that he may have done something to himself (swallowed air) trying to catch the crazy damsel that he's lived with for about 8 months. One eye seemed a little cloudy.

We got a new order of shrimp yesterday. We put all of them in with him, so I'm not sure if he ate one or not. My husband put a small one in his mouth last night, but he spit it out. He was right side up and looked better this morning...but I am not getting my hopes up yet.

 

[Reef Pinoy]

Anyone out there have these "attachments" on their wartyskin anglers? These red featherlike attachments are predominantly over its purple markings. Since I haven't seen any warty pictures online with this type of "camouflage," I was wondering if my fish is sick or just "hairy." Thanks

closeup

overall picture

 

[Reefcherie]

They look completely normal to me. My angler has grown all sorts of funny little protuberances over time. I believe the ones your has are in an attempt to mimic the same growths you can sometimes see on the rock in our tanks. The ones on your angler look just like the small spiny red (calcareous) foram, Homotrema rubrum. Growing such things seems to be part of the angler's camoflauge mechanism.

 

[DrBegalke]

Are there any large, active fish that you can keep with a 3 to 5" long (i know they grow fast) angler/frogfish?

I was thinking of a blue-jaw trigger, or possible some sp. of tang (would it pick at the fish thinking it is a rock?)...

 

[Reefcherie]

Rule of thumb: never keep any fish w/ an angler that isn't at least 2x its present size. They have been known to attempt to eat other fish up to that point (even those with spines!). Unfortunately, such an encounter is generally fatal to both the angler and the other fish. The angler's digestive system is very slow and eating too large a meal can prove toxic to it.

Scott Michael, in Reef Fishes Vol. 1, lists these fish as most likely to harm frogfishes: Batfishes, Angelfishes*, Butterflyfishes*, Surgeonfishes, Triggerfishes*, Flefishes, Trunkfishes, Pufferfishes and Porcupinefishes. Those w/ the "*" denotation - "The species in these families that eat zooplankton are of little to no threat to frogfishes." He also mentions that herbivores like Rabbitfishes and Blennies are also potential frogfish nippers.

He lists potential tankmates as: Soldierfishes, Squirrelfishes, Scorpionfishes*, Groupers*, larger Hawkfishes*, Snappers*, Grunts and Sweetlips, Swalllowtail Angelfishes, Pyramid Butterflyfishes, Monos. The "*" fishes may eat a frogfish that can be swallowed whole.

Most people find that the safest thing to do is to keep frogfishes in species-specific tanks.

 

[Fishy1]

Dont' know what the difference is but the frogfish do The article says that for some reason, even if they have been acclimated to accept frozen food, they will eventually reject it and become languid. They will stop moving, spots will appear all over their bodies and thier breathing will become labored. It is at this point that feeding them live fish can save their lives......otherwise they are doomed to die of starvation.......

Janey

 

[reefD]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6808174#post6808174 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Fishy1
Dont' know what the difference is but the frogfish do The article says that for some reason, even if they have been acclimated to accept frozen food, they will eventually reject it and become languid. They will stop moving, spots will appear all over their bodies and thier breathing will become labored. It is at this point that feeding them live fish can save their lives......otherwise they are doomed to die of starvation.......

Janey

thank you for the explaination of that. so at this point you should just start adding live fish into the tank for the angler to hunt and eat? if he is languid will he hunt the live food?
thanks for the info

ohh yeah what are the white spots you speak of? do the go away when they begin feeding on live food? just absorbing info! thanks all!