Great!! another emergency!!!

Ok here we go, well for those who don't know i recently posted another asap thread about an aptasia outbreak i'm having. so i ordered a troop of pep shrimp and a copperband....the copperband was placed in the tank 1.5 days ago, and now i'm waking up to a 80% dead fish. what the heck????? i currently have in the tank (54 gal corner bow) 1 yellow tang, 2 clown fish, 1 royal gramma, 1 green chromis, and most recently the copperband. when i first added him the tang was alittle aggressive with him but i didn't think much of it i obviously can't prove it was him but pretty sure it was...currently the copperband is laying on his side breathing fast not moving, is there a chance?? or is this pretty much it?? i bought the fish through dr fosters and there's a 14 day arrive alive stay alive guarantee never had to deal with this, any help would be great......Thanks

 

Copperbands are finnicky eaters, I have attempted one and it died from starvation a few weeks later. My LFS constantly gets them and some die spontaneously, usually because they are harvested by horrible methods. I would think if everything else in the tank is doing ok, it was unhealthy when you received it. Did you watch it in the store prior to buying it, was it eating frozen foods & healthy?

My method when buying fish is usually to get something that has been in the store for a week at the least, is eating, active, & appears healthy.

Best of luck, hope it pulls through for you.

 

thanks, fish was in quarentine for a week, eating and picking from the rocks...the lights in my tank are starting to turn on now and i'm noticing some battle scars i think my tang is the culprit...

 

Got it, I wish I had a QT but it does sound like aggresion from the Tang might be it since you did QT it. Maybe you can save it?

 

just spoke with dr foster rep. they said they will give a credit for the fish but unfortunately not the shipping which stinks!!! however surprisingly enough they use the honor system for their arrive alive guarantee...in the meantime i'm going to attempt to save the fish..any advice would be great...here's my idea, gonna pick up a couple of in tank floating iso tanks to seperate the tang and the copperband, hopefully the copperband will recover then i'll realease the copperband back in the tank first for several days then realease the tang. was also thinking about picking up some meds? for the copperband to maybe help out with the stress....any additions or other ideas would be great.....thanks

 

I have read on more than one occasion that a method used with much success is to rearrange your rock-scaping when dealing with bullying.

this way it's like everyone is on a "new block" and there are not any established territories.

I think the "isotanks" might induce more stress unless they are so big that they are taking up the entire tank. There is not a lot of room in a 54 gallon for isotanks when there are corals and liverock already there.

If it's feasible - a rockscape rearrangement is free and will give you a chance to "tweak" your layout a bit while hopefully containing bully issues among your tank inhabitants.

 

I understand what your saying but my problem is the corals....can't really rearrange without having to move all the corals too..thought i read somewhere that if i isolated the bully for a day or two that would help...

 

What are the water parameters? Can you tell us a little more about the tank ? Are you saying that you think he bullied the other fish into getting sick and dying and there were no outward signs of illness and the death occurred over night? That doesn’t sound right to me and I think you need to explore other possibilities.

 

All parameters are in check aside from calcium with is alittle low although i know that doesn't matter for fish sg is 1.025. temp 78, the copperband does show signs of battle scars on its side and there are red marks on the side (maybe scars with blood???). when i looked at the tang it looks like their is some kind of a foreign object lodged in its scaple on the tail.

 

Just scooped him out of the tank...dead...@#$%!!!