URGENT--Sick Filefish in Quarantine-Pls help

[ladyshark]

Hello

Just got a Aiptasia Eating Filefish from ORA.

There are two juvenile clowns, who keep to themselves, together at an opening in the PVC pipe.

All three in a 10 gallons quarantine, probably 8 gallons in the tank. They went into the quarantine around noon on Tues, so with TTM would go into the second tank tomorrow morning.

I have an amonia badge that shows no ammonia and I tested API for ammonia and it was zero. That was yesterday, but I went ahead and put Prime in yesterday afternoon as well. PS. I tested after I put the Prime in and put the ammonia badge in about the same time, so I am not sure how Prime affects testing.

Clowns eating very well--Sprectrum pellets and a little mysis


File fish did not go for the pellets, and since the clowns kind of took over the PVC, Filefish settled in in the opposite corner behind the heater. I planned to put in a second PVC for him as I know they are shy fish.

I used a turkey baster to gently place mysis shrimp in front of the FF nose in the corner, and while he didn't go for it right away, it was gone, so I beleive he ate that.

Today, he is out of the corner and laying on his side. Breathing seems ok and he is using his side fins normally, but just lays there.

I see no spots, mucus, or anything suggesting a parasite. It looks like his tail is a little chewed on, but I have never had this sort of fish so not sure. As you can see in one of the pictures, the clowns are not bothering him at all even though he is near them.

Salinity is 1.023
Temp is 76-77

Can anyone direct me as to what to do next?

Thanks in advance

 

[ladyshark]

Also, just fed the tank with pellets. Will be suctioning them out now, as I did yesterday to keep ammonia down

 

[ladyshark]

API tested .25, so I added another dose of Prime

(two threads in the cap for 8-10 gallons)

 

[ladyshark]

Now it looks like he is not fluttering his side fins, and breathing rapidly.

Clowns look fine

 

[ladyshark]

I will take water out of my display and try to acclimate FF in a separate bucket

 

[ladyshark]

Acclimating him to display tank water, removed from quarantine, want to put him in a bucket with display water, which has good params, btw (Amm, Trite are 0, Trate is 10, Pos is near 0)

See pic--no sign of spots, mucus, etc. Not swimming at all, still "breathing"

Thoughts?

 

[ladyshark]

Lying on the bottom, when I nudged him with a net he went a little crazy and even broke the surface of the water. Front/head area looked pinkish under his skin.

Can anyone help me try to understand what is going on?

 

[ladyshark]

Well he died.

I am attaching pictures and ask that folks weigh in on what the cause was.

Recieved on Tues noonish, died Thursday late at night.

Had not eaten since I received him, kind of hid in corner. Seemed ok when I first put him in.

No flashing, sores, spots. A little gulping of air (not a lot) Lips in the pics look reddish and his head was a little reddish before he died. Very much listing around and not swimming most of the day, just going with the flow in the tank.

Only difference in terms of acclimating was that I opened the bags on the clowns and got them in the tank, then opened the file fish bag and got him in pretty quickly (within half hour, with acclimating by adding quarter cups of new watter to shipping watter, every 15 minutes, then emptying most of water and again adding new watter every 15 minutes) so while he was in the shipping bad longer (maybe 45 minutes), he was not exposed to an open shipping bag any longer than the clowns.

I note that his tail looks pretty rugged, but not sure what they are supposed to look like. Never saw the clowns bothering him, at all.

I am thinking ammonia spike.

Am continuing with TTM of the clowns, they are going into tank two tomorrow (day 4)

Would really appreciate some thoughts--this is my first attempt to quarantine.

 

[2smokes]

The water in wich the filefish was transported got too cold ? My guess is it was stress from shipping.Its a nice surprise to see that somme people would agitate this much to save a fish.Maybe taking a picture with the dead fish and emailing it to the seller could earn you a discount or another filefish.

 

[neiltus]

I have a couple questions, as I am qt'ing for the first time as well.

What was NH3 and how did you test? Prime added?
How did you acclimate?
What is flow like in your QT?

 

[scooter31707]

Also be easy with the Prime. API ammonia test kit will show a false reading of 0.25ppm.

 

[ladyshark]

Neil

Flow--airstone on air pump
Acclimate--I don't drip acclimate. AFter letting the shipping bag, still closed, float in new water to adjust temp, I continue to float, open the bag and add quarter cup or so of new water to shipping bag ev. 10 minutes or so, drain a lot of that water out of the bag then keep adding small amounts ev 10 min or so, then drain into collandar and slip into QT water. I have never QT's before, and have acclimated like this for year into my DT (I know, I know) and have been lucky, but now will be QT every fish, this is my first QT experience. Want to limit time in the shipping bag.

Tank 1 in QT was new water, not DT, so started at 0 NH3.
My research here indicates that Prime is added on Day 2 as a matter of course (I think, right? Maybe test first from now on). Prime is supposed to stay effective for 24-48 hours, then Day 4 is tranfer into tank 2. API NH3 test was 0 on Day 2

However, on Day three, filefish looked bad (see pics) so I tested API again and it showed .25. This typically is a false positive, as there are still ammonia molecules in the water, but the Prime makes it non-toxic. But, with the file fish so bad, I added some more Prime, just in case it had worn off. Just doing what ever I could think of.

Then started transferring to bucket with display water to get it away from clowns, primarily--this was NH3 0 water, but really too late at that point and he died.

There is the issue of wanting to get the fish out of the shipping bag asap (Sktr8 says withing 30 mintues), and acclimating sufficiently. Then making sure no ammonia spikes during TTM. Once TTM is over, I have sponges in my display that are seeded so will have a bio filter for the observation period.

I find this challenging, but will get easier each time, I am sure.

I am really crossing my fingers that its shipping stress and not a communicable disease. Clowns are still great, and were transferred today in to Tank 2.

 

[neiltus]

My vote, shipping stress or how he was collected. I am not an expert on this and doing the TTM is new to me as well.

Only things I would have done differently was use a non-api test, I don't trust API stuff. I run two air pumps on a 10 gallon the first one I bought barely pushes air.