Sick Mandarin Dragonet-Acting wrong

[SeaHorseQueen]

This is him this afternoon. He went through a bottle of pods in 1.5 days so I put another bottle in before I went to work. At least he’s showing improvement. He’s been investigating his hospital tank and seems to be more calmer.

 

[Tired]

He looks much better!

Will he take BBS? Newly hatched BBS are plenty nutritious, and way cheaper than pods.

 

[SeaHorseQueen]

He looks much better!

Will he take BBS? Newly hatched BBS are plenty nutritious, and way cheaper than pods.

He used to. Idk if he touching them right now but I put a LOT in there so I’ll know in a couple days. Been adding 3-5 drops of RG Complete to keep pods and bbs fed in his tank for now. Plus, I added frozen cyclops hoping he might touch them.

 

[Jay'sReefBugs]

Glade to see he's eating again best of luck

 

[SeaHorseQueen]

Glade to see he's eating again best of luck

Thank you. I’m glad he’s feeling better too. I thought for sure we’d be having a funeral.

 

[SeaHorseQueen]

This morning he’s a little funny. I’m sure he was just waking up. But he’s fully colored and should have been awake. He slept by the filter and swam up to the top and just slowly cruised the top of the tank no eating. Just breathing. He definitely can swim from the top but he’s kind of just swimming at the top like he’s half asleep. Is it possible he has like a swim bladder issue?
Since the tigger pods showed signs of starting to die off I dumped them into the tank for him. I think the fridge is too cold for them.

 

[SeaHorseQueen]

Does it look like he broke the top spine? He seems really stressed right now. I haven’t seen him eat today. He’s just breathing hard but he does move around.

 

[Tired]

That does look potentially broken. Not a big concern on its own, but I'd worry about why it's broken, because that could mean he's done something vigorous and stress-related.

Try turning out the lights. Dim lighting can help calm fish.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Does it look like he broke the top spine? He seems really stressed right now. I haven’t seen him eat today. He’s just breathing hard but he does move around.

The deep, rapid breathing and suddenly not eating are serious symptoms!

First thing to do is check all the water parameters you can (especially ammonia since you had a suspicious reading before - you should have your store test it with some other test than an API) and add an airstone to the tank if it doesn't have one.

Unfortunately, there are other disease-related causes for rapid breathing; protozoans, bacterial or flukes (although flukes are rare in mandarins). Trouble is, there is no way to tell which of these issues could be affecting the fish and they all require different treatments.

Jay

 

[SeaHorseQueen]

So apparently he didn’t break it? This is him when I came home from lunch. I thought for sure it was broke….

 

[Tired]

Well, that's good, but a broken fin ray is (at most) a sign of something potentially having scared him. It's not the main concern, not compared to the stressed behavior.

Did you test for ammonia?

 

[SeaHorseQueen]

I just wanted to updated that he passed away this evening. Went to check on him and he wasn’t breathing.

 

[Tired]

Poor guy. Sounds like you did your best, though.

 

[Reefgal]

I had success with large live pods. Aquarium depot used to have them but looks like they don’t anymore.