Hawkfish suddenly lethargic, not eating

csreed · Dec 31, 2017

Good morning, all. My reef tank is a 200 gal, has been running 2 & 1/2 years. The flame hawkfish was one of my first fish, so we can assume he's at least 3 years old. He's always been active & an assertive water at feeding time. Over the last week or so I've noticed that he is less active & not eating as much. I was able to catch & isolate him last night & I have not been able to get him to eat at all since. He has no visible wounds or lesions. Nothing has been added to the tank since I put a couple of harlequin shrimp in 5-6 weeks ago. All the other fish are behaving normally. I'll check chemistries when I get home, but I've done nothing different lately. 30-35 gal WC every 2 weeks, feeding frozen mysis, TDS shrimp/fish/clam, Marine Cuisine.

Any ideas??

Thanks for any suggestions.

Cynthia

motortrendz · Dec 31, 2017

ive had similar issues what the heck hawkfishes where they just stop eating and waste away...pretty cool your lasted about 3 years... with that said i dont know the life span of them but could be age, check to see if you se any visible signs of parasites as well...

csreed · Dec 31, 2017

motortrendz said:
ive had similar issues what the heck hawkfishes where they just stop eating and waste away...pretty cool your lasted about 3 years... with that said i dont know the life span of them but could be age, check to see if you se any visible signs of parasites as well...

Thanks for the feedback! I've read that they can live up to 10 years, so this seems like a sudden & unexplained change. He was always so hearty! Can't see anything externally on him [emoji53]

motortrendz · Dec 31, 2017

any flicking of the gills on the sand? ive had a couple of themover the years... and every one i lost to starvtion they always did great for a bit and ate like pigs until one day they just stopped...hopefully someone else has some better input than me

csreed · Dec 31, 2017

Well, I lost him tonight. Crud. A brief post-mortem looking for anything in the gills, mouth & guts revealed nothing. No external lesions. I felt like he'd been breathing harder for a while. Now I'm paranoid & think my fox face may he breathing harder too... any ideas??

4FordFamily · Dec 31, 2017

Sometimes these things happen. Sorry for your loss. Quick and abrupt changes may indicate something sinster, be on the lookout for marine velvet.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/velvet-amyloodinium-ocellatum.217570/

What other tankmates does he have?

csreed · Dec 31, 2017

Uh oh - my yellow tang has been "playing" in the powerhead lately & I feel like my fox face is breathing hard. I thought the tang had ich in blue light, but looking at him in white light I see absolutely nothing - thought it was just tiny scales or bubbles.
I've got 3 firefish (added about 3 months ago), a flame angelfish, a yellow tang, a one-spot foxface, a Benaggi cardinalfish, 6 blue chromis, & a clownfish. I had a coral beauty that died unexpectedly about a week to 10 days ago - he was very timid & I thought perhaps he hadn't been getting enough to eat - just found him dead one morning.
Of course it's a holiday & I don't have formalin or copper. There were NO visible lesions on my hawkfish.

csreed · Dec 31, 2017

I've examined my fish by flashlight & still can't see any lesions. Since everything is closed until Tuesday, I guess all I can do is wait & pray. Does it seem like the progression between fish (7-10 days since the coral beauty, hawkfish seeming "off" for days) is long for velvet? Can harlequin shrimp carry it? That's the only thing I've added since early October...