Black Angler dying!?! Need help*****

[Treehrtsme]

apologies for the double post, accident


I came home from work today and my angler that I just gotten in and acclimated yesterday was sitting upside down almost floating off the sand kinda going with the flow when last night he had been acting normal properly latched onto a rock just doing his angler thing. Saw him crawling around a little.

Inspecting him for awhile I was almost 100% sure he was dead. Even took him out of the tank, thank God it didnt look like he'd swallowed any air. but when I put him back he'd have sudden short jolts when I gently tried to move him towards the rockwork and then just stay static in whatever position he was.

It looks like there might be something growing off of him, I literally just saw him open up his mouth and close it like he was gulping****************, this is really weird first experience with one of these. I have him perched up on a rock right now and he's sticking there. I moved him to a lower flow area of the tank and sectioned it off keeping it away from light.

I hear it's common for these to be under fed but I was going to wait a day or two to try to feed him. I'm taking my tank parameters right now but when I did the acclimation everything was good the only other thing in the tank is a pistol shrimp and a small Toby puffer which has been separated from the angler the entire time. I'll post a picture

What should I do? I think it could be stress related. I am considering running a small carbon reactor I'm the off chance that there's some sort of toxin from the puffer but the puffer seems to be doing great.

 

[Treehrtsme]

It seems like he's actually trying to move little by little now but he's just flipping himself upside down I see a tiny bit of movement from him every now and then I'm trying to catch video of it but maybe it is a swim bladder problem.

He's upsidedown now, just saw him gulp again

 

[Tcook]

double post

 

[Tcook]

@lion king might be able to help. Get those parameters posted. Did you match salinity? Was this fish shipped? How did you acclimate?

 

[Treehrtsme]

I did a standard precocious acclamation bag float for 30 minutes and then slowly added water to the bag till I had enough to put into a bucket then a slow drip over the course of perhaps an hour somewhere in that range. My salinity is a little high, which I just noticed probably due to evaporation. I'm at 1.00256

 

[Treehrtsme]

It looks like he's using the gulping to propel himself around.


It was shipped

 

[Tcook]

With fish shipped in O2 it is best to temp and salinity match then dump right in to observation. As the bag is opened and gasses off the ammonia becomes toxic.

 

[Treehrtsme]

I I wasn't able to get the best measurement of salinity from the water he was shipped then but it seemed like it was 24 so I figured I could just acclimate him to 25 like my tank was. Should I slowly bring down the salinity of my tank?

So far nitrate 0 ammonia 0, I'm stuck dealing with another issue so it's back and

 

[lion king]

What is the sg in your bucket, if sg in your tank is more than .002 higher then bring your tank down, or even take longer time to acclimate. When you transfer to take, you need to keep the angler submerged, as they can gulp air, and it can be deadly.

 

[Treehrtsme]

How do I know if he's air. It seems like he's having trouble staying straight but he's opening his mouth and spitting out the shoot himself around every now and then as of right now I'm not even sure if he's still alive.

 

[Treehrtsme]

His mouth is wide open, well at least compared to any other fish I've had and it's just staying that way..... Is that normal....


Ph is 8 as well, though I didn't do the most perfect calibration on my new meter

 

[lion king]

How do I know if he's air. It seems like he's having trouble staying straight but he's opening his mouth and spitting out the shoot himself around every now and then as of right now I'm not even sure if he's still alive.

So you transferred him from the bucket to the tank, if you moved him out of the water, then what you are describing is likely air. You can try and burp him; gently cradle him and massage his abdomen while tilting him up, back to center, then up again. Do this very gently and slowly. Sometimes then can right themselves on their own, sometimes not.

 

[lion king]

I saw the pics in your other post, looks like he's not coming back. You can handle him to see if he is still alive. Everything needs to go right with these guys, they have a very high mortality rate. If the sg was too high of a difference or if he gulped air, both of these can be deadly. A little too late now but I did write a thread about anglers.

So you want a frog fish; I call them anglers

I've kept a few, my first going back 25 years. These are very difficult fish to keep and I am still very frustrated as to the success in keeping these guys long term. I do have some information I would like to share for those interested. Be forewarned, they are not for everyone and do take...

www.reef2reef.com