Four-eyed butterflies

unionfishguy · Mar 13, 2014

Help! My school recently got a large amount of saltwater fish for our marine biology class, and we got six beautiful four-eyed butterflies. They were eating healthy, seemed fine, then in a span of one week six suddenly died. No idea why. Please help!

Sdoutreefer · Mar 13, 2014

Was the tank cycled?

unionfishguy · Mar 13, 2014

Of course it was

Sdoutreefer · Mar 13, 2014

What were all params? Did the fish show signs of sickness/disease?

unionfishguy · Mar 13, 2014

Does this particular type of butterfly require some type of special care? If so, please tell me so I can save our last two!

unionfishguy · Mar 13, 2014

Nitrates 10, all else 0, and salinity is 1.024

unionfishguy · Mar 13, 2014

And no, all seemed fine, behaving normally, eating normally, then sudden death.

Sdoutreefer · Mar 13, 2014

Hmm. Beats me. Maybe someone put something in the tank?

I'm not a fish guy so maybe someone with more knowledge will chime in. Sorry I couldn't help more. Good luck!

LegitFish · Mar 13, 2014

maybe ph?

unionfishguy · Mar 13, 2014

I believe the pH was stable at 8.2, but I could be wrong. I will have to check the groups records first to be sure.

LegitFish · Mar 13, 2014

If not ph, then maybe stray voltage?

stunreefer · Mar 13, 2014

Are you referring to Chaetodon capistratus? If so they can be a tough fish to acclimate, but doable. Butterflies in general commonly come in with flukes and internal parasites, both can be treated simultaneously with a Praziquantel treatment (Prazipro by Hikari readily available and easy on fish). Were they being kept with other fish? Were they showing aggression towards each other... they should be observed with all ambient light off but tank light on (at night is best, no sunlight), little to no movement outside of tank (ie., probably no kids around). Fish act completely different when we're not in sight; think of children once adults leave the room.

I would perform a FW dip on the dead fish (if still possible) and watch for signs of flukes or marine velvet <-- Google is your friend if you don't know what to look for.

Are the remaining two fish still eating?

unionfishguy · Mar 13, 2014

The six fish were spread out into different tanks, and all were with other fish. I commonly observe them alone when the rest of the class leaves, standing stock still in the middle watching all of the tanks, and I have seen no aggression from them or to them. A common denominator in 3/4 dead butterflies was the presence of a sharpnose puffer. Could this be it?

unionfishguy · Mar 13, 2014

And FYI, all of the fish we got came straight from a reef, picked off then sent to us. We did not deem quarantine necessary because they were going into tanks with fish that came from the same order, and only them. These were not store bought.

stunreefer · Mar 13, 2014

unionfishguy said:
A common denominator in 3/4 dead butterflies was the presence of a sharpnose puffer. Could this be it?

Possibly, and certainly a great observation. "Sharpnose puffers" of any species can be voracious feeders once conditioned, and can intimidate the heck out of more docile feeders such as your butterflies. However you noted the butterflies were eating, and didn't mention you've observed aggression when standing still (BEST thing to to when viewing fish, don't let them know you're there!) so it's hard to blame the puffers in this instance.

unionfishguy said:
And FYI, all of the fish we got came straight from a reef, picked off then sent to us. We did not deem quarantine necessary because they were going into tanks with fish that came from the same order, and only them. These were not store bought.

I understand your logic, and agree with it besides not deeming QT necessary. Surely there's a heck of a lot more ailments present in most wholesale or retail systems since they see such a vast array of animals from all over the world and most are rarely, if ever disinfected. However, these fish could have very well been living with a plethora of ailments on the reef, which in their natural environment and day to day lives posed them no harm. Nevertheless once collected and transported these fish were put under incredible stress, which is when any fish ailments will begin to affect them.

Marshall O · Mar 14, 2014

How were they collected (if you know)? Where were they collected from (they have a wide range, from MA down to northern South America)? What temp are your tanks kept at? How were they acclimated?

unionfishguy · Mar 14, 2014

If we were told correctly, the Florida keys. And we spent two hours just warming them up, cause when we got all of the fish the box temps were in the low 50's. So once they had warmed up into the 60-70 range, we put the bags in the tanks, and over the course of another 1.5 hour, we ladled in small amounts of their tanks water periodically.

Marshall O · Mar 14, 2014

unionfishguy said:
If we were told correctly, the Florida keys. And we spent two hours just warming them up, cause when we got all of the fish the box temps were in the low 50's. So once they had warmed up into the 60-70 range, we put the bags in the tanks, and over the course of another 1.5 hour, we ladled in small amounts of their tanks water periodically.

Well that could be part of the problem anyways (the low temperature upon arrival). They could have just been very stressed during the capture, shipping, acclimation, and then possible aggression from existing tankmates. Doesn't sound like you did anything wrong, although I would certainly suggest QT'ing any new arrivals in their own tank.

unionfishguy · Mar 15, 2014

The came a solid month ago, so if they had had any major stress symptoms, they would have showed it much earlier. And all of the fish were new arrivals, and there was no way we would have been able to quarantine them all in separate tanks, we are a fortunate school, but not that fortunate.