Purple firefish passed away in quarantine - pic inside

AngryMike2016 · Mar 25, 2019

Hi folks,

I began quarantine of a royal gramma and a purple firefish on 2/27. They have both been eating well and swimming without issue since QT began. Came home from work today to unfortunately find the purple firefish dead. The royal gramma is still trucking along, seemingly fine and ate well today.

I couldn't tell anything from looking at the firefish, so I thought that I would post a picture here, in case someone more experienced than I does see something.

Thanks in advance.

Flippers4pups · Mar 25, 2019

Treating them or just observation?

AngryMike2016 · Mar 25, 2019

Just observation.

ngoodermuth · Mar 25, 2019

Any aggression between the two?

AngryMike2016 · Mar 25, 2019

Nothing that I had observed, but I suppose it could have happened.

AngryMike2016 · Mar 26, 2019

Thought I'd give this a bump just in case there are more ideas on what may have happened.

CWR24 · Mar 26, 2019

Well......he's dead alright.

On a side note I'm in the process of setting up a bigger aquarium. I have a Royal Gramma in my other smaller tank at the moment. When I'm fully ready to make the switch over he won't be making the trip with the rest of the critters into their new home.

I should have named him Pia.....short for Pain In ***

Was probably bothering the death out of him both literally and figuratively.

CWR24 · Mar 26, 2019

Well......he's dead alright.

On a side note I'm in the process of setting up a bigger aquarium. I have a Royal Gramma in my other smaller tank at the moment. When I'm fully ready to make the switch over he won't be making the trip with the rest of the critters into their new home.

I should have named him Pia.....short for Pain In ***

Was probably bothering the death out of him both literally and figuratively.

AngryMike2016 · Mar 26, 2019

Huh, I'd heard and read that Grammas were relatively peaceful, but with zero signs of disease that I could see that must have been it. I work from home and my tanks are in my office, so I look at them a lot. Never saw the two fish 'getting into it', but who knows what was happening at night or when I was away.

ludnix · Mar 26, 2019

AngryMike2016 said:
Huh, I'd heard and read that Grammas were relatively peaceful, but with zero signs of disease that I could see that must have been it. I work from home and my tanks are in my office, so I look at them a lot. Never saw the two fish 'getting into it', but who knows what was happening at night or when I was away.

It varies a bit from gramma to gramma but they can definitely be on the aggressive side with other small fish. Not saying that's the cause of the death but just my experience with them. Firefish on the other hand seem like they can be startled to death if you fart too loud so I generally would not co-habitat them in a QT.

4FordFamily · Mar 26, 2019

It looks like it was thin, which to me means internal parasites possibly and also of course if it isn't eating well it won't live long.

Firefish can be finicky, sorry for the loss.

AngryMike2016 · Mar 26, 2019

The fish seemed to have been eating fine, but yeah, if it had internal parasites eating well doesn't necessarily mean getting nutrition from the food.