Fish died very quickly

seastar · Aug 17, 2015

Any idea how a fish who ate earlier in the day (young vivid fancy clown) could go from swimming around, to lying on the sand bed, to dead in 30min? He/she was breathing heavily, not swimming erratically and then just didn't make it :/ No visible signs of ich, water parameters all where they should be. I'm blown away how quickly that happened. I couldn't even research emergency procedures before it was gone.

Tahoe61 · Aug 17, 2015

Power head accident I suppose, sorry.

seastar · Aug 17, 2015

Hum, that might explain it, I just cant think of how else it happened so quickly. I didnt see any cuts but I guess it could be internal. Argh it was such a nice fish.

Humblefish · Aug 17, 2015

Was this a relatively new fish or had you owned him for awhile? Any other fish affected?

seastar · Aug 17, 2015

Pretty new, 2 weeks. Bought him with another vivid fancy clown that's swimming like a champ.

mochaclownlover · Aug 17, 2015

did anyone in the tank pick on him/her?

Humblefish · Aug 17, 2015

If the other clown goes down, suspect Brooklynella. It's not unheard of with captive bred clownfish.

mochaclownlover · Aug 17, 2015

seastar · Aug 18, 2015

@mochaclownlover I am sorry I didn't get back to you last night, infant was acting up. :/ Not my night, hahaha. no one in the tank was picking on him/her, its a fairly new tank (3 months) and everyone plays very nice in it.

seastar · Aug 18, 2015

thank you @Humblefish, I am going to look this up. First thing I did this morning was check on the other clownfish and it's doing ok so far, but I'll keep you posted. Should I get this one in the QT tank to be on the safe side?

seastar · Aug 18, 2015

Also, just trying to rule things out but if it were low oxygen, he would have been on the top, and I would have seen other fish effected, correct?

Humblefish · Aug 18, 2015

seastar said:
thank you @Humblefish, I am going to look this up. First thing I did this morning was check on the other clownfish and it's doing ok so far, but I'll keep you posted. Should I get this one in the QT tank to be on the safe side?

I would leave him in the DT for now. As someone else said, maybe the other clown just suffered a freak accident of some kind. Also, since we can't see what's going on inside a fish that can come into play as well. If a fish is born with a defective internal organ (for example) or perhaps cancer starts growing over an organ, then that fish may be a ticking time bomb.

However, if the other clown starts showing symptoms of any kind, that would strongly suggest a waterborne pathogen is in play here and I wouldn't hesitate to pull him.