What causes the white strip to turn pink after dying? See pic

[caseyjones]

I'm not 100% sure but I don't believe this pink was there when it was alive. If it was, it was very faint. This fish was imported about 6 days before it died. I suspect some sort of poison, possibly cyanide. Can anyone confirm this will actually science?

 

[WDLV]

Is that pink true to form or does the picture exaggerate it a little? I've seen some pink in the striping of sleeping fish before but that's new to me. Looks like it was colored in with a highlighter.

 

[caseyjones]

It exaggerates it slightly, I would say this is 90% accurate. This fish was imported from the Philippines along with 24 others. They were individually packed. Since sunday about 8 of them died, a couple a day. They went from looking rather strong to dead very quickly. The weird thing is that these are they only Clownfish that eat within 10 hours of arrival. It wasn't pink until it turned for the worse. What could cause this?

 

[WDLV]

PI are notorious for cyanide fishing.

 

[JamesJR]

I would not jump the gun and say cyanide poisoning. Clownfish tend to be pretty easy fish to catch in the wild and the collectors would probably be less inclined to use it on these fish.

There could be a lot of reasons for a premature death. A lot of it could do with handling and transportation prior to their arrival at the dealer. Were the fish sent to a wholesaler in the states or were they transhiped? How did they acclimate the fish and how did you acclimate it to your tank?

You need to go into more detail about what the fish looked like before death. Any strange films on their skin? Scratching behavior? I
I have handled a lot of fish and from my experience brooklynella is probably the number one killer of newly imported clownfish.

I've had and handled many clownfish over the years and they all tend to have their stripes go pink when they die. It is probably due to their capillaries dilating and having blood accumulate near the surface of the skin.

 

[caseyjones]

I'm working for the wholesaler that imported these fish. They are acclimated on a designated acclimating table where the water on the table is injected with CO2 to drop the PH down to match that of the arriving fish. The fish are floated to temp before being placed on the table. Once all the fish are placed the CO2 is turned off and the PH slowly returns to normal, takes about 6-8 hours.
I agree that brooklynella is almost surely the cause, I see that alot on Maroon Clowns but hardly ever on the Sebae's. The Oscellaris are hit or miss. I know these fish are collected by fisherman and brought to the docks where our supplier buys the days catch. The are supposedly held for 3 weeks prior to shipping and they are a MAC certified shipper.