Fish deaths

[pixelpixi]

Damn. I just had two fish die within the last 24 hours. The first was a diamond goby that I noticed dead on the sand yesterday evening. It had been a little skinny lately so I thought possibly it wasn't getting enough food and I just hadn't noticed the signs of starvation.

A few hours later I noticed my saddle valentini puffer up against the overflow strainer. I freed it from the overflow but it was having trouble with the current so I attached a plastic colander near the top of the tank and put it in there to give it a low flow zone. It was still not doing well a couple hours later so I moved it to a hospital tank with a slightly lower salinity to try and increase oxygen availability. Sadly it didn't make it through the night. One odd thing is that its tail was curled to one side. I wonder if it had been injured somehow.

Water parameters seem okay and the corals are doing fine, which makes this extra bizzare. Diatoms have been fairly bad lately, however. I went ahead and did all the usual stuff this morning... water change, fresh carbon, poly filter, etc. I also disconnected the biopellet reactor thinking that possibly this is a bacterial infection that the biopellets are exacerbating. That's just a guess, though.

:-(

 

[rygh]

Dang!

Please be careful not to over-react. "Fixing" the wrong thing can make it worse fast.

Watch other fish carefully, especially how they feed.
Some not eating? One being a bully? Fish poo look funny?

 

[neuro]

any pics of your tank? what are your parameters?

 

[pixelpixi]

That's good advice, Mark. Thanks.

 

[denzil]

Sorry to hear.

If anything, I probably would have just done a larger water change and observe behavior for the next week or two. Don't want to change too many variables at the same time, like Mark said.

 

[Kensington Reefer]

Sorry to hear
Sometimes their time is up!

 

[BAYMAC]

The curled fin is normal on puffers not doing well.

IMO you're looking at an internal parasite.