Can you reverse Sudden Fright Syndrome (SFS)?

jjencek · Dec 10, 2020

I have been breeding Cardinals using brine shrimp to feed them. I thought if fed brine shrimp in the first few hours after hatching, they were nutritious and I could avoid SFS. After 15 days a couple of the cardinals started to show SFS, but usually get out of it after several minutes. I quickly switched to TDO for the ones that will eat it and started to load up the brine shrimp for the remaining fry.

It has been several days with minimal signs. So the question is ... Once a fry starts having SFS, can it be reversed by feeding better food?

ichthyogeek · Dec 10, 2020

I believe so. Feeding copepods, gut loaded brine shrimp, and otherwise changing the diet should help.

Greg Hiller · Dec 10, 2020

It can be reversed by feeding nutritious food, yes. Now can it be reversed if you just frightened a couple dozen 4 week old beautiful gold-stripe maroon clowns and they all had fishy heart attacks...no. Don't ask me how I know!

ichthyogeek · Dec 10, 2020

I hate to be *that person, but I actually think that SFS might have to do with the nervous system (DHA/EPA do wonders at preventing it supposedly). So less death by heart attack (which might imply feeding the wrong foods), and more death by anxiety attack. Sounds kinda like me actually....

Greg Hiller · Dec 10, 2020

Yup, absolutely agree regarding the problem with DHA/EPA. Call it what you like heart attack or anxiety attack the result is the same...beautiful little clowns sinking to the bottom of the tank.

Jeffcb · Dec 10, 2020

Interesting to say the least

jjencek · Dec 11, 2020

I would like to be casually optimistic, It has been five days since I saw the first SFS (2 cardinals) and quickly switched to gut-loaded brine shrimp and TDO. It repeated two days later with one fish and has been fine since. I have not lost any of them.

So maybe it can be reversed or at least slowed down. I will keep you posted after some time passes.

Surfzone · Dec 11, 2020

I always thought feeding Tiger pods would be a better food for the babies than bbs.

shred5 · Dec 11, 2020

Surfzone said:
I always thought feeding Tiger pods would be a better food for the babies than bbs.

Problem with Copepods is they are hard to raise in enough quantity for the average hobbyist.
I mean bbs are so easy and can have numbers quickly.
I do believe supplementing with copepods though can help.

ThRoewer · Dec 11, 2020

I generally avoid feeding a lot fresh brine shrimp. I usually "enrich" them in live algae for a day until they rather look green than orange. And I always throw some copepods into the mix. Tigriopus is fairly easy to culture in the backyard here and highly nutritious.
Parvocalanus is also not as hard to culture as it seems, definitely easier than Apocyclops, Tisbe, and the like.

Surfzone · Dec 11, 2020

ThRoewer said:
I generally avoid feeding a lot fresh brine shrimp. I usually "enrich" them in live algae for a day until they rather look green than orange. And I always throw some copepods into the mix. Tigriopus is fairly easy to culture in the backyard here and highly nutritious.
Parvocalanus is also not as hard to culture as it seems, definitely easier than Apocyclops, Tisbe, and the like.

I have never found Apocyclops all that hard to culture. Just some algae paste and they are good to go for me. I have had issues with Parvocalanus but that is because I could never get my T. Iso to bloom. I think it may have something to do with my algae culture techniques. My question to you is, would it be possible for you to discribe you T. Iso culture techniques so that I may be sucessful with this. I have tried and failed many times and was only sucessful only once with T. Iso.

I have raised many mandarines with just apocyclops and rotifers but would like to get a sustainable culture of parvocalanus going as well. I'm just getting back into the breeding game after a move from California to South Carolina, and I have a nice sized space to use for aquaculture.

ThRoewer · Dec 11, 2020

Surfzone said:
I have never found Apocyclops all that hard to culture. Just some algae paste and they are good to go for me. I have had issues with Parvocalanus but that is because I could never get my T. Iso to bloom. I think it may have something to do with my algae culture techniques. My question to you is, would it be possible for you to discribe you T. Iso culture techniques so that I may be sucessful with this. I have tried and failed many times and was only sucessful only once with T. Iso.

I have raised many mandarines with just apocyclops and rotifers but would like to get a sustainable culture of parvocalanus going as well. I'm just getting back into the breeding game after a move from California to South Carolina, and I have a nice sized space to use for aquaculture.

Where did you get the T-Iso from? I couldn't find a good commercial source of it and work with a strain I got "donated".

I find it not too difficult to culture, especially not in larger vessels. It's just sterilizing the equipment and water (bleach for everything, neutralized with Thio), adding enough f/2 (I'm now at 4x the suggested amount), lots of air, and lots of light (plant grow lights 24h/day). It gets dark very quickly. Even faster is Isochrysis.

shred5 · Dec 11, 2020

Try Florida Aqua Farms or Algae research supply. I have never bought from ARS though myself.

Surfzone · Dec 11, 2020

ThRoewer said:
Where did you get the T-Iso from? I couldn't find a good commercial source of it and work with a strain I got "donated".

I find it not too difficult to culture, especially not in larger vessels. It's just sterilizing the equipment and water (bleach for everything, neutralized with Thio), adding enough f/2 (I'm now at 4x the suggested amount), lots of air, and lots of light (plant grow lights 24h/day). It gets dark very quickly. Even faster is Isochrysis.

I don't remember where I got the T Iso from. When I tried the culture it was back 3 years ago

sabeypets · Dec 11, 2020

Yes they can recover once off brineshrimp completely. The quickest/best method is feed TDO during the day and the last feeding, just before lights out feed brineshrimp. That way it forces them to eat TDO in the morning when hungry but still gives the few refusing eat something to eat at bedtime and survive on. The sooner they are off brineshrimp the better.

jjencek said:
I have been breeding Cardinals using brine shrimp to feed them. I thought if fed brine shrimp in the first few hours after hatching, they were nutritious and I could avoid SFS. After 15 days a couple of the cardinals started to show SFS, but usually get out of it after several minutes. I quickly switched to TDO for the ones that will eat it and started to load up the brine shrimp for the remaining fry.

It has been several days with minimal signs. So the question is ... Once a fry starts having SFS, can it be reversed by feeding better food?

sabeypets · Dec 11, 2020

I dont know what exactly causes SFS, but I have raised enough Banggai to know that a diet of exclusively brineshrimp can cause a mortality rate up to 100% from SFS and an exclusive diet of TDO can have up to100% survival rate.

jjencek · Dec 12, 2020

I have been trying to save TDO. I will have a problem pretty soon. I am running out of TDO. I am in Central Europe and they will not ship it to me from California anymore. I still can get Otohime from the UK, but I like the top dressed TDO. And it might get worse after BREXIT.

So the question is ... What else can I use to keep these guys healthy after I run out?

ThRoewer · Dec 12, 2020

jjencek said:
I have been trying to save TDO. I will have a problem pretty soon. I am running out of TDO. I am in Central Europe and they will not ship it to me from California anymore. I still can get Otohime from the UK, but I like the top dressed TDO. And it might get worse after BREXIT.

So the question is ... What else can I use to keep these guys healthy after I run out?

Why won't they ship to you?

jjencek · Dec 12, 2020

They did ship it once by regular mail. This time they were going to use Fedex and they require a lot of customs forms. I think it is just too much work for them. The funny thing is that I used to live a few minutes driving from them ... San Mateo.

ThRoewer · Dec 13, 2020

jjencek said:
They did ship it once by regular mail. This time they were going to use Fedex and they require a lot of customs forms. I think it is just too much work for them. The funny thing is that I used to live a few minutes driving from them ... San Mateo.

San Mateo is a little further from them than a few minutes... And I'm quite certain it's only their office that's in Campbell. I think the farm is a little further south on Monterey Bay...
Is there no reseller of @Reef Nutrition products in the EU? I would think there should be one.