What's wrong with my Pajama Cardinal?

[sixline]

I went traveling for a couple weeks as I often do. My tank is moistly automated and I usually return after a trip to see everything functioning properly. I just do a supplementary feeding, and add water to the topoff reservoir and I'm up and running.

This time I returned to find one of my pajama cardinals is apparently on it's way out. It seems too late to do much, but i'm trying and hoping to save the fish if possible. But I'm also trying to have a good guess on what might have happened.

Some more info:

- 100 gallon mixed reef
- The fish in question is one of a group of five pajama cardinals that were purchased around 10 years ago.
- All of the inhabitants of the tank have been in the tank for over five years. In other words, I've stopped adding to or changing the tank over five years ago and am just watching it grow. No new corals, inverts or fish.
- The fish seems less buoyant than normal. It rests a bit on the sand and then swims with a twitching, jerky motion. The fish can't seem to 'hover' like other fish, but starts slowly sinking back towards the sand when it's not actively swimming. No obvious signs of physical injury, other than some frayed fins. Scales and eyes look good, and breathing looks normal. None of the other tank inhabitants (percula, royal gramma, aptasia filefish, starry blenny, pair of engineer gobies) seem to be bothering the pajama. Also, the fish is not eating.

Any ideas on what might have caused this, and what to do, if anything?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

I went traveling for a couple weeks as I often do. My tank is moistly automated and I usually return after a trip to see everything functioning properly. I just do a supplementary feeding, and add water to the topoff reservoir and I'm up and running.

This time I returned to find one of my pajama cardinals is apparently on it's way out. It seems too late to do much, but i'm trying and hoping to save the fish if possible. But I'm also trying to have a good guess on what might have happened.

Some more info:

- 100 gallon mixed reef
- The fish in question is one of a group of five pajama cardinals that were purchased around 10 years ago.
- All of the inhabitants of the tank have been in the tank for over five years. In other words, I've stopped adding to or changing the tank over five years ago and am just watching it grow. No new corals, inverts or fish.
- The fish seems less buoyant than normal. It rests a bit on the sand and then swims with a twitching, jerky motion. The fish can't seem to 'hover' like other fish, but starts slowly sinking back towards the sand when it's not actively swimming. No obvious signs of physical injury, other than some frayed fins. Scales and eyes look good, and breathing looks normal. None of the other tank inhabitants (percula, royal gramma, aptasia filefish, starry blenny, pair of engineer gobies) seem to be bothering the pajama. Also, the fish is not eating.

Any ideas on what might have caused this, and what to do, if anything?

Can you post a short video?

It is likely just “aging out” - ten years is a very respectable age for a cardinal fish!

Jay

 

[mlfish]

I went traveling for a couple weeks as I often do. My tank is moistly automated and I usually return after a trip to see everything functioning properly. I just do a supplementary feeding, and add water to the topoff reservoir and I'm up and running.

This time I returned to find one of my pajama cardinals is apparently on it's way out. It seems too late to do much, but i'm trying and hoping to save the fish if possible. But I'm also trying to have a good guess on what might have happened.

Some more info:

- 100 gallon mixed reef
- The fish in question is one of a group of five pajama cardinals that were purchased around 10 years ago.
- All of the inhabitants of the tank have been in the tank for over five years. In other words, I've stopped adding to or changing the tank over five years ago and am just watching it grow. No new corals, inverts or fish.
- The fish seems less buoyant than normal. It rests a bit on the sand and then swims with a twitching, jerky motion. The fish can't seem to 'hover' like other fish, but starts slowly sinking back towards the sand when it's not actively swimming. No obvious signs of physical injury, other than some frayed fins. Scales and eyes look good, and breathing looks normal. None of the other tank inhabitants (percula, royal gramma, aptasia filefish, starry blenny, pair of engineer gobies) seem to be bothering the pajama. Also, the fish is not eating.

Any ideas on what might have caused this, and what to do, if anything?

Hi there. One of ours seems to have this problem--I thought it was dying but it has remained like this for several weeks. Did you ever figure out what was going on?

 

[sixline]

Hi there. One of ours seems to have this problem--I thought it was dying but it has remained like this for several weeks. Did you ever figure out what was going on?

I never got an answer, but the fish recovered.

Make sure to check that your fish is not carrying eggs in their mouth. This happens a lot with mine, and it's pretty easy to tell since they stop eating and I can see that they're carrying something in their mouth.

But the incident I had when I started this thread seemed to be something different.