Fish dying within 24 hours

[MrsBlennyHana]

I sent this in a message to @Jay Hemdal and he asked me to post this in a thread for education. I’ll post it directly here!

Hi Jay! I’m not sure you’ll see this, but I’m not sure what to do. I have purchased 2 captive bred Bangaii Cardinalfish and both passed within 24 hours of purchase and I don’t know what is going on. I have messaged the store owner to see if he had any ideas (as he was surprised the first fish passed) and I can attach the message I sent to him below. I followed your acclimation method (which we have used previously with our first shipped fish) and all seemed well after acclimation.

“Hey, I’m the one who came in yesterday for a second Bangaii cardinalfish after we lost the first one. It seems like we’re losing the second one now, and I have no clue what’s going on. I was wondering if you had any ideas? I don’t want to keep losing fish if it’s something we’re doing (these are the first fish we’ve attempted to quarantine and it’s clearly not going well).

Let me send some videos of the fish”

And then:

“
I also included some still shots of the tank. We have a smaller heater on the way but it was delayed with shipping so we put our bigger one in there.

Ammonia - 0 (salifert and seachem indicator)
PH - 8.15 (salifert)
Salinity - 1.026
Temp - 77.3

We added an air stone when the first fish started not doing well in case it was an oxygen issue. The first fish was tipped sideways/upside down on the bottom of the tank and gasping, but she stayed at the bottom of the tank since we brought her home. She also started just drifting around the tank without swimming. This second fish seemed to be doing much better, he was staying up in the water column and even seemed interested this morning when I topped off the tank with RODI water. When we got home from work he was kinda hiding at the bottom but we didn’t notice anything odd. 30-45 minutes later we went in to check on him and try some pellets, and he was drifting around the tank like you see in the video. It looked like what the first fish was doing, but this one wasn’t gasping. I’m just not sure what could be going on. Nothing looks off physically in terms of appearance.”

The fish became worse after this and was moribund. He then passed.

Here are some photos and I’ll try to get YouTube links for the videos. I know this was long but if it’s something we’re doing I don’t want to keep losing fish. Thanks so much if you’ve read this.

 

[MrsBlennyHana]

 

[cdemoss01]

I sent this in a message to @Jay Hemdal and he asked me to post this in a thread for education. I’ll post it directly here!

Hi Jay! I’m not sure you’ll see this, but I’m not sure what to do. I have purchased 2 captive bred Bangaii Cardinalfish and both passed within 24 hours of purchase and I don’t know what is going on. I have messaged the store owner to see if he had any ideas (as he was surprised the first fish passed) and I can attach the message I sent to him below. I followed your acclimation method (which we have used previously with our first shipped fish) and all seemed well after acclimation.

“Hey, I’m the one who came in yesterday for a second Bangaii cardinalfish after we lost the first one. It seems like we’re losing the second one now, and I have no clue what’s going on. I was wondering if you had any ideas? I don’t want to keep losing fish if it’s something we’re doing (these are the first fish we’ve attempted to quarantine and it’s clearly not going well).

Let me send some videos of the fish”

And then:

“
I also included some still shots of the tank. We have a smaller heater on the way but it was delayed with shipping so we put our bigger one in there.

Ammonia - 0 (salifert and seachem indicator)
PH - 8.15 (salifert)
Salinity - 1.026
Temp - 77.3

We added an air stone when the first fish started not doing well in case it was an oxygen issue. The first fish was tipped sideways/upside down on the bottom of the tank and gasping, but she stayed at the bottom of the tank since we brought her home. She also started just drifting around the tank without swimming. This second fish seemed to be doing much better, he was staying up in the water column and even seemed interested this morning when I topped off the tank with RODI water. When we got home from work he was kinda hiding at the bottom but we didn’t notice anything odd. 30-45 minutes later we went in to check on him and try some pellets, and he was drifting around the tank like you see in the video. It looked like what the first fish was doing, but this one wasn’t gasping. I’m just not sure what could be going on. Nothing looks off physically in terms of appearance.”

The fish became worse after this and was moribund. He then passed.

Here are some photos and I’ll try to get YouTube links for the videos. I know this was long but if it’s something we’re doing I don’t want to keep losing fish. Thanks so much if you’ve read this.

Poor fish I'm sure you'll get it eventually

 

[MrsBlennyHana]

 

[MrsBlennyHana]

Jay’s reply:

“Hi,

Can you please repost this in a new thread in the fish disease forum? Questions answered by private message can’t be seen by other members. A lot of people just read and learn, so they would miss that.

One thing to follow up on - do you know, or can you find out, the salinity of the dealer’s tank? I suspect it is lower than yours. Raising the salinity more than .001 SG units or so can be very stressful, and more than .003 can be fatal, even with acclimation. The fish is VERY thin, one thing that a sharp rise in salinity does is dehydrate the fish, causing it to become very thin.

Jay”


My response to Jay:

“Yes I can repost it! When I tested the bag water of the first fish the salinity was 1.028 and the second was 1.026, which I was surprised by. Maybe my refractometer needs calibrated? I can verify the salinity with the LFS”

And that’s it so far

 

[Sharkbait19]

To me the issue is with the Cardinal. All of mine had died within 30 days - most much quicker. There has been a really bad supply lately that are sick with iridovirus, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was your issue.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Is that a QT tank or your display tank?

 

[VintageReefer]

My first thought was salinity

How did you acclimate from store / bag water to quarantine water?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

It doesn't sound like the issue was a salinity rise then. Since that issue didn't dehydrate the fish, the fish must have been thin to begin with, OR something in the way the video was made makes them look thin?

 

[MrsBlennyHana]

Is that a QT tank or your display tank?

QT

 

[MrsBlennyHana]

It doesn't sound like the issue was a salinity rise then. Since that issue didn't dehydrate the fish, the fish must have been thin to begin with, OR something in the way the video was made makes them look thin?

Bangaii #1

Bangaii #1

Bangaii #2


I’m not sure if these are helpful or not

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Bangaii #1

Bangaii #1

Bangaii #2


I’m not sure if these are helpful or not

Yes - that fish looks thin to me, its eye is also protruding more than normal.

Banggai cardinals are a problem. As mentioned, the wild caught ones often die from an iridovirus. The captive raised ones were better (as long as they didn't get mixed in with wild caught ones along the way). but more recently, they are being "captive raised" in SE Asia. These fish are not as high quality as the domestically raised ones. Your fish look too small to be wild caught, but I suspect that they were raised in SE Asia, and getting them from there to the LFS takes time, and fish are not fed properly during that time and can become too thin.

Jay

 

[MrsBlennyHana]

My first thought was salinity

How did you acclimate from store / bag water to quarantine water?

Using Jay’s method of 25%, 50%, and 100% tank water every 5 minutes after a 10-15 minute float.

 

[MrsBlennyHana]

Update: LFS confirmed salinity was 1.025-1.0255 when we picked up, so it seems my salinity was accurate. They said these fish come from Quality Marine. They had the fish for about 2 weeks, and were the last two left from an original shipment of 12. Mine were the only two deaths reported to them.

Edit: Quality Marine’s Bangaii are aquacultured in East and South Asia!

 

[vetteguy53081]

Looks like the number of imports that have arrived to the USA weak or unstable triggering a proposed ban due to poor ship and what is said to be overbreeding abroad

 

[MrsBlennyHana]

Looks like the number of imports that have arrived to the USA weak or unstable triggering a proposed ban due to poor ship and what is said to be overbreeding abroad

What are your thoughts on ours being the only 2 reported deaths out of 12? I think the LFS is being truthful, they offered us another fish if we just put it straight into our DT instead of QT (obviously didn’t want another death).

We’re most likely just going to pay for pre-quarantined fish so we don’t have to deal with any of this.

 

[Sharkbait19]

What are your thoughts on ours being the only 2 reported deaths out of 12? I think the LFS is being truthful, they offered us another fish if we just put it straight into our DT instead of QT (obviously didn’t want another death).

We’re most likely just going to pay for pre-quarantined fish so we don’t have to deal with any of this.

I’d never skip qt - unless you’re doing something really wrong, a healthy fish should have no problems in qt.