Help!, Hawkfish sick

[ericbosco]

Hi all,

my flame hawk seems to be ill. He is hiding behind a rock, has not eaten and his color is less vibrant. Also seems to be breathing more heavily.

I've noticed this odd behavior for a few days, especially the not eating part, but it has gotten worse tonight. Recent changes were the addition of a Bicolor blenny 2 weeks ago. Also I'm now feeding a new batch of formula one frozen which seems to have a much different consistency from the old batch. All the other fish like it.

Tank params check out (amonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate < 5, ph 8.25, temp 77, salinit 1.026) other inhabitants (6 line wrasse, 2 ocellaris clowns, yellow tail damsel and newly added bicolor blenny) also all look great. Corals (anchor, trumpet and some mushrooms) look good too?

What can I do?!

Thanks,

-Eric

 

[ericbosco]

Still the same, hasn't eaten today either. This makes it abotu 3 days that he has not had any food that I've feed the tank... any ideas appreciated.

 

[scallop]

Eric:
Other than the not eating part, has the labored breathing worsend or settled back down. Also, is the breathing fast or slow. Here are some reasons breathing may be affected; -change in pH of greater than 0.1 in 24 hours. -Drastic change in salinity, perhaps .010 in the course of an hour or two. Ammonia spike. Ammonia is usually the culprit I encounter in any of my test tanks.

The not eating for more than 4 days is a bad sign. Although not eating for 2-3 wont harm the fish in the long run its best to find the reason. This could e predation, distaste for that type of food. Try live brine or live amphipods because of the "hawkish" feeding practices.

Here's the brass tax. If that fish does not eat in 3-4 days that will be what 8 by my count. This can be significantly damaging as the fish is now running on stored fat. You can obviously see that the fish is not the fattest fish in the sea. In order to help this fish he must be removed to quarentine tank. My favorite are eclipse (any model). Have it heated to 76 and match the parameters to the main tank exactly. Then add dextrose to the water. I'll pull up my old notes and try to find the concentration, duration, and source of the dextrose you should use.

Because the fish may be malnurished right now he may or may not need that dextrose. Once in the water he will be able to matabolize the sugar directly (to a certian point). I find this usually works with fish that refuse to aclimate to a certian tank, for whatever reason. Hopefully simply removing him to a q-tank will allow you to begin feeding again. Good luck.

 

[ericbosco]

Hi, thanks for the help. He is breathing still a little fast but all the other fish are OK and amonia reads 0. He has been in this tank for 7 months now eating a lot and doing great, and this just happened in the past few days.

I do have another small tank I can put him in, but I don't know how I could catch him. Suggestions?

-Eric