RIP green mandarin

[NateHanson]

Well, the beautiful green mandarin I got last saturday croaked yesterday. He seemed to acclimate well initially and on Sunday and Monday he was feeding on the rock all over the tank, but then for the rest of the week he just sat on the sand in various places. Yesterday he was almost motionless and breathing very very slowly, and died later in the afternoon (shrimp eating his head - figured that was a safe sign of death).

The strange thing is that he looked fat and healthy right up to the end. Even his corpse looked like a perfectly colorful, healthy fish. He never faded, looked ematiated, or showed any physical signs of ill health.

Anyone have any ideas of what happened to this guy?

Nate

 

[this is me]

sorry to hear about that nate.

 

[clamm]

too bad, I really want one but need a more established tank... they are funny...some with good tanks can't keep em and some can... no clue why

 

[NateHanson]

This tank is only about 2 months old, but most of the rock came right out of my previous tank which was a year old. Plus I have an established refugium stocked entirely from my previous refugium, and there's tons of pods in both the tank and fuge. So I don't really think he starved. Plus he looked fat, and I would think it would take such a fatty longer than a week to starve to death. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I should have waited until THIS tank was a little older. But I wonder if other folks have an idea of what did this dude in, or whether it sounds to you like he starved.

Nate

 

[clamm]

is there something to and established sand bed that would have an effect on these guys? I really dont know...but might be worth getting input on.

 

[JustDavidP]

Nate,

Try here: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/manddisfaqs.htm

Dave

 

[Moe_K]

Weird, Nate.
I'd suspect cyanided, but who needs cyanide to catch a mandarin?!

 

[starrfish]

Nate - so sorry for the loss of your little guy. Sometimes it just happens with no explanation. I had a yellow tang once that never made it out of QT. Just stopped eating. No other signs of illness.

 

[skyedolphan]

sorry to hear Nate
on that how is everyone elses doing?
I am concerned about cyanide and did ask about it when they first cam ein I was assured that they were not cyanide caught and had been in his systems for 4 weeks prior to coming to us..but.......who knows people lie all the time.

please LMk about the others and let me know if there is anything i can do

 

[wrassefan]

my green female psycho has been fine...won't eat frozen anything but can see her pecking away at the rock....I'm hoping she learns from the green male who does eat frozen. Only issue I have is they won't even look at each other...they grazed on the same rock once..thinking that because the 2 diff species...prob won't pair up.

 

[NateHanson]

Yeah Andy, the psycho is probably as attractive to the green as you are too a monkey. Close, but not quite right, would be my guess.

 

[Chuck Spyropulos]

Too Bad

That is really to bad. Sorry to hear.
I saw that Mandarin you bought and it looked really healthy.
If there were no external signs of illness then it probably was an internal parasite or pathogen.

 

[NateHanson]

Hope the other fish stay healthy. So far so good.

 

[davidrupe]

Maybe it was just old age Nate. Fish have a life span also and if he was caught in the ocean, who knows how old he was...