Clownfish dies from choking on mysis shrimp

[Brennin]

Hey everyone - So my clownfish died after I fed mysis shrimp from choking. This is super rare and although figured it must be possible I never had heard of it happening.

I made a video of the whole thing if y’all are curious how.



After talking to other people in the hobby they said they had seen it before but there really isn’t anything you can do since it’s so rare. Just my dumb luck I guess.

 

[Tamberav]

So when people are choking.. it is because an item is blocking the airway...

fish don't have lungs, they have gills... but they do have to move water over it... can they not move water over the gills? Maybe the food was not lodged very far down?

Because for people, if food is stuck in your esophagus, NOT your windpipe... it is not normally a emergency. So basically what happens is you drool since you can't swallow your saliva but you can breath.

So how does a fish choke and die so quickly? Anatomically how does this work or make sense? I seriously don't know so am asking.

I assume fish can get food stuck and these inbred clownfish could literally have defects in their esophagus making it easier, but how does it kill them quickly?

I had a wrasse I was feeding and then turned back around and it went from eating to literal death rolls. I don't know about choking... honestly I just assumed it was excited, maybe ran into something, maybe it had an aneurysm or a fishy heart attack, fish looked perfect otherwise but people drop dead from internal problems so why not a fish.

@Jay Hemdal ? on choking?

 

[Brennin]

So when people are choking.. it is because an item is blocking the airway...

fish don't have lungs, they have gills..

So how does a fish choke?

Because for people, if food is stuck in your esophagus, NOT your windpipe... it is not normally a emergency. So basically what happens is you drool since you can't swallow your saliva but you can breath.

So how does a fish choke and die so quickly? Anatomically how does this work or make sense? I seriously don't know so am asking.

I assume fish can get food stuck and these inbred clownfish could literally have defects in their esophagus making it easier, but how does it kill them quickly?

I had a wrasse I was feeding and then turned back around and it went from eating to literal death rolls. I don't know about choking... honestly I just assumed it was excited, maybe ran into something, maybe it had an aneurysm or a fishy heart attack, fish looked perfect otherwise but people drop dead from internal problems so why not a fish.

@Jay Hemdal ? on choking?

I had the same questions. The response that I got is that since mysis has the shell it’s possible to get lodged in the gills. When I checked the fish after it was dead you could see the piece of shrimp kind of sideways in the gills.

 

[Tamberav]

I had the same questions. The response that I got is that since mysis has the shell it’s possible to get lodged in the gills. When I checked the fish after it was dead you could see the piece of shrimp kind of sideways in the gills.

Can it not live with one gill for awhile? I have seen my wrasses that sleep in the sand get a grain in the gill and they will sort of flash and freak out and dislodge it.. then all is good. Generally happens because they will dive into the sand and thrash to stir up natural micro fauna to eat and sometimes it gets in their gills.

How long were you gone for?

 

[Tamberav]

I mean fish can definitely choke... at least when they eat something too large... there are photos of pikes and I saw one of a shark that had a literal huge fish stuck sticking out of its mouth... almost as big as they are.

I guess it is surprising a little Mysis in a gill could kill something quickly.

 

[Brennin]

Can it not live with one gill for awhile? I have seen my wrasses that sleep in the sand get a grain in the gill and they will sort of flash and freak out and dislodge it.. then all is good. Generally happens because they will dive into the sand and thrash to stir up natural micro fauna to eat.

How long were you gone for?

I only stepped away for maybe 5 minutes. I’ve seen that before with wrasses. Idk. It’s possible that he already had a defect like you said and this just exacerbated the problem. I guess on the flip side it’s possible he stressed out having something caught and that caused a heart attack or something.

 

[Tamberav]

Captive clownfish can be pretty derp... I would imagine one would just sort of swim around in circles panicking where a wrasse that sleeps in the sand knows how to deal with the problem.

 

[Brennin]

I mean fish can definitely choke... at least when they eat something too large... there are photos of pikes and I saw one of a shark that had a literal huge fish stuck sticking out of its mouth... almost as big as they are.

I guess it is surprising a little Mysis in a gill could kill something quickly.

Hahaha How do you think I felt. It was a $150 fish…. It was hichari mysis too which is smaller so it was just a freak incident.

 

[ckuhny3]

Making me think twice about feeding and walking away!! So sorry for the loss! That would be so hard for me to deal with

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I don't know about that one, thats hard to believe.
#fishmedic can fish choke and die on mysis?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Sorry for your loss.

Fish can "choke" and die from eating food that is too large - as evidenced by what they call "aspiration fossils" - where a dead fish is fossilized after dying trying to eat too large of a prey item.

I've only had that happen in captivity once. A predatory cichlid tried to eat another one that was way too large and it got stuck. I found it swimming with this dead fish hanging out of its mouth. I pulled the dead fish out and it was fine.

Fish also die from swallowing gravel, but that is from a bowel obstruction.

Two key bits of evidence in your case; you found the mysid wedged in the fish's gullet, right? That is one important clue. However, the contrasting clue is that the fish got stuck against the filter intake because it was too weak. That goes against your hypothesis - the fish can breath around the choking item (the cichlid fish I mentioned above was full of energy and really struggled while I caught it up to remove the dead fish).

Here is my alternative hypothesis, and it also involves something very rare - that the fish was fine, and eating food, and suffered a sudden death event - aneurysm, heart failure, etc. This also is rare, but is known to happen.

Jay

 

[Brennin]

Sorry for your loss.

Fish can "choke" and die from eating food that is too large - as evidenced by what they call "aspiration fossils" - where a dead fish is fossilized after dying trying to eat too large of a prey item.

I've only had that happen in captivity once. A predatory cichlid tried to eat another one that was way too large and it got stuck. I found it swimming with this dead fish hanging out of its mouth. I pulled the dead fish out and it was fine.

Fish also die from swallowing gravel, but that is from a bowel obstruction.

Two key bits of evidence in your case; you found the mysid wedged in the fish's gullet, right? That is one important clue. However, the contrasting clue is that the fish got stuck against the filter intake because it was too weak. That goes against your hypothesis - the fish can breath around the choking item (the cichlid fish I mentioned above was full of energy and really struggled while I caught it up to remove the dead fish).

Here is my alternative hypothesis, and it also involves something very rare - that the fish was fine, and eating food, and suffered a sudden death event - aneurysm, heart failure, etc. This also is rare, but is known to happen.

Jay

 

[Brennin]

That’s a good point.

@Tamberav and I came to that as a potential explanation that the food getting stuck could have stressed the fish into a heart attack or something.

 

[Brennin]

Making me think twice about feeding and walking away!! So sorry for the loss! That would be so hard for me to deal with

Yeah it always hurts losing a fish.