Royal Gramma Death

[Tyson]

Looking for some insight. I've had a royal gramma in quarantine for about 2 weeks. I also have a snow onxy clown in the same quarantine tank, but it was in there a few days longer. The gramma was doing fine for the first week, but then I noticed a few light colored scales around it's head. I've only been in the hobby about 6 months, and thought it might be signs of velvet... I started a cupramine treatment and added some garlic to the food I was feeding both fish. Both fish were eating fine and acting normal. I did, however, see the gramma flash once or twice. I had the copper treatment going for a few days and noticed the white spots getting a little worse around the gramma's head, but it was still acting normal and eating fine. Yesterday, I got home from work and the white spots ended up looking like a giant patch of missing scales on top of the gramma's head and it was struggling to swim and breath. It seemed obvious this wasn't velvet or ich, so I assumed the cupramine wasn't going to be effective and did a 25% water change late last night to see if that may help. When I woke up this morning I found the gramma didn't make it. During this whole time the clown has been acting perfectly fine and showing no signs of any issues. Tank parameters are good, salinity 1.025, ammonia 0, and I have a seachem badge in there. If anyone has any ideas on what happened I'd appreciate it. I'm hoping to keep this from happening again. I'm also a bit worried I decided to quarantine 2 fish at the same time and not sure if the same thing might happen to the clown. Both fish came from a solid LFS nearby, however, I know they just received the gramma a few days before I bought it.

Sorry for the long description, just trying to give as much detail as possible! I've been reading on the forums for quite some time, but this is my first post.

Here are the pics of the gramma this morning after I removed him.

 

[Brew12]

Looking for some insight. I've had a royal gramma in quarantine for about 2 weeks. I also have a snow onxy clown in the same quarantine tank, but it was in there a few days longer. The gramma was doing fine for the first week, but then I noticed a few light colored scales around it's head. I've only been in the hobby about 6 months, and thought it might be signs of velvet... I started a cupramine treatment and added some garlic to the food I was feeding both fish. Both fish were eating fine and acting normal. I did, however, see the gramma flash once or twice. I had the copper treatment going for a few days and noticed the white spots getting a little worse around the gramma's head, but it was still acting normal and eating fine. Yesterday, I got home from work and the white spots ended up looking like a giant patch of missing scales on top of the gramma's head and it was struggling to swim and breath. It seemed obvious this wasn't velvet or ich, so I assumed the cupramine wasn't going to be effective and did a 25% water change late last night to see if that may help. When I woke up this morning I found the gramma didn't make it. During this whole time the clown has been acting perfectly fine and showing no signs of any issues. Tank parameters are good, salinity 1.025, ammonia 0, and I have a seachem badge in there. If anyone has any ideas on what happened I'd appreciate it. I'm hoping to keep this from happening again. I'm also a bit worried I decided to quarantine 2 fish at the same time and not sure if the same thing might happen to the clown. Both fish came from a solid LFS nearby, however, I know they just received the gramma a few days before I bought it.

Sorry for the long description, just trying to give as much detail as possible! I've been reading on the forums for quite some time, but this is my first post.

Here are the pics of the gramma this morning after I removed him.

I'm sorry you lost him. I know I love my Gramma. Very amusing fish.

Take a look at this thread. Think it could have been bacterial?
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/bacterial-infections.191511/

 

[melypr1985]

That appears to be an infection. The root cause of the infection is something we would to be concerned about at this point though. Does the clown appear normal? Any heavy breathing, flashing, scratching, yawning, hiding from light, swimming into the flow, white dots/patches/dust/slime on his body? If no to all of these, then I would suggest watching him very closely and having kanaplex or furan2 (both is better) available in case he gets the same infection as the gramma.

 

[Maritimer]

Wish I knew what to tell you ... that almost looks like some kind of abrasion, but from what you've written, that's not how it started.

An unhappy way to say it, but welcome to Reef2Reef. I hope you find, as I have, that it becomes your go-to for knowledge and solutions. To that end . . .

@Humblefish and @melypr1985 are as good as it gets when it comes to diagnosing ailments of the ichthyological kind. Hopefully, they can help with future grammas and others . . .

~Bruce

Edit: (>__<) And she's already on the case!

 

[Humblefish]

Agree with bacterial infection diagnosis. However, I suspect this fish also had a preexisting worm or parasitic infestation, and the secondary infection was just the nail in the coffin.

 

[Tyson]

Thanks everyone so much for the help. The clown still appears to be acting perfectly normal and healthy. No odd behavior whatsoever. I'll be keeping a very close eye on it though. I also just picked up a pack of both Kanaplex and Furan-2 just in case I notice anything.