Losing Finned Friends: What was the reason for the most recent fish passing in your tank?

[AlyciaMarie]

Losing fish is one of the hardest parts of reefing, or keeping any animal, for that matter. It can be hard to pinpoint the exact cause of a fish's death if the cause isn't obvious, but I'm sure we all hope that when it's our finned friends' time to go, they go of natural causes and painlessly, leaving only good memories behind.

What was the reason for the most recent fish passing in your tank? Did you learn anything from that experience?

 

[shakacuz]

other: poor acclimation/QT. i ordered fish from an online vendor based on affordability and in both orders i received(first being the order i made, second being the "replacement" order), the fish died almost by the end of day. first order i had a fish arrive dead, other on its way out.

 

[bliu4871]

other: Albino Neon Tetra egg-bound. I think She was trying to lay eggs but they got stuck halfway out - and I didn't know what to do - she went to hide behind the plants and I never saw her again

 

[vlangel]

My most recent loss was a purple pseudochromis that my oldest son gave when he tore his tank down. I have a glass top on the tank but an inch and half in the back is only screened and the pseudochromis must have jumped through the mesh. His tankmate, a bicolor blenny has acclimated well to my tank.
Prior to this loss, most of my fish are several years old with the oldest being about 6 years old. Before that the tank was a specie specific seahorse tank.

 

[JoJosReef]

Yasha jumped through the mesh. This is a smaller mesh than my previous stock IM mesh lid. I now have a fully polycarb lid...

 

[Barncat]

Except for one, they all died as new additions, either because they were more stressed than I realized or because one of my existing fish took an exception to their presence. (I now use an acclimation box.)

The other casualty? Jewel the yellow tailed damsel died during The Great Christmas Disaster of '23.

 

[exnisstech]

I voted other because I don't know what caused my last death or the one before that.

 

[windsor_salt]

waterchange... not sure what happened... but it killed my royal gramma only. sad

 

[bakbay]

I’ve lost 95% of my fish due to a velvet outbreak after a big tank transfer! That’s after going thru hypo, copper, and re-acclimation. I still do not know the cause of the outbreak but lessons learned for me next time: slowly perform a tank transfer and don’t overload the system. Introduce fish slowly and reduce stress.

 

[Bill333]

I recently got an order from Dr Reef's for 3 fish- two diamond gobies and a mandarin. The mandarin and one of the gobies looked exhausted when I got them and were probably dead within 24 hours. I've had orders from them before where the fish turned out great, but this was very disappointing. They guarantee the fish - if you get the dead bodies out of the tank and take pictures of them. These fish were small and disappeared into the rocks.

 

[jperhay]

I believe it starved during my trip out of the country.

 

[design.maddie]

My last three fish that died all jumped. I now have a glass top.

 

[Uncle99]

I killed a 5 year old YT and BT.
Used Flatworm Exit.
These two fish, (and only these two) consumed the dying flatworms as they released into the water column.

Died in 30 minutes.

The others (who didn’t eat them) remain unaffected.

Very bad mistake on my part.
Did not anticipate that.

RIP.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Fluke and my lack of experience with it and failure to catch and treat it in time. Heavy price to pay (emotionally) for experience gained.

 

[Johnnyrainbowreefer]

I moved a power head and my Scopas tang got curious and got sucked into it. I should have used the fish guard but I didn’t. May he Sleep with the Fishes.