Royal gramma can't swim right side up

[blackdog]

I added a royal gramma to my tank four days ago, and it appeared to be acclimating without difficulty. Today I found it stuck on the substrate in the back. It appears to be trying to right itself, but it can't swim right side up. All fins are intact and there is no damage, and his coloration hasn't changed. No spots or wounds on it. It is gasping for breath some, but that looks like it's from the effort of trying to get moving again. As of now, I have netted him and have the net floating in the top of the tank so the gramma is getting current over it. It has been eating lustily for three days, and right now it has a string of feces coming from the vent. Does it have some sort of bloat or gas bladder issue?
Any suggestions appreciated. If you feel the need to remind me of the importance of a QT tank, that's fine. If you don't have any other suggestions than to tell me to get a quarantine tank, with all respect, save us both the time. I mean that as politely as possible.
Water params: amm 0, trite 0, trate 0, sg 1.024, pH 8.3, temp 84 (very hot here right now)

 

[beth]

My first concern will be the Water Temp! That temp is just not tolerable. I suggest that you place some ice in ziplocks and bring that temp down in the tank and keep it down. Make sure that the ice bags are placed where there is good water movement so that surface cold spots don’t occur. 80degrees will be fine. Leave the lights off if you have to. How good is the circulation in your tank? Particularly water surface? With those temps, I'd bet your oxygen levels in water is low. Bring down the temp and see if that solves the problem. The fact that other organisms in the tank don’t seem to be suffering with the water temp, does not mean that this is not the problem with this particular fish.
If temp is not the problem, then is harassment a possibility? In the absence of any visible signs of disease, and the fish having been perfectly fine up until now, it seems that harassment could also be considered in trying to pin down this problem. Again, just because you don’t see the harassment, doesn’t mean that it’s not happening; and, just because there are not torn fins, doesn’t mean that the fish is not feeling harassed.
What about food? What has he been eating? What type of tank do you have? If it is reef, could the fish have been stung by an anemone or a coral?
Go for resolving the temp first. Let the fish go back in the tank.
And, finally QT, QT, QT! LOL

 

[bang guy]

Originally posted by Beth:
<strong>My first concern will be the Water Temp! That temp is just not tolerable. I suggest that you place some ice in ziplocks and bring that temp down in the tank and keep it down. </strong><hr></blockquote>
What you are seeing is a symptom for a variety of problems, some fatal, some harmless. Let's hope it's just a case of adapting to your food (my guess). A lot of fish stores only feed Grammas brine shrimp. If you suddenly switch to something nutritious it's going to develop a bad case of gas. It should pass withing 24 hours if you start feeding less. I hope that's the problem....
Beth - I maintain my reef temp around 84F all year. This is a normal temperature for reef animals and is actually on the low end of normal reef temperatures.
I will be happy to explain my reasoning if you're interested.
Guy

 

[blackdog]

Starting yesterday evening, I placed a baggie with ice in the skimmer where water flows around it, temp is staying under 83 now. Unfortunately, the gramma expired yesterday. I'm not sure exactly what the problem was. It had eaten both flakes and brine shrimp, and appeared to have found a couple different caves in which he was very comfortable. He was swimming in the open with the other fish without being molested, and was defending his own cave effectively.
Most likely, it was stressed even though it appeared fine. It had only arrived at the LFS a couple days before I took it home. But I checked the body and there were no signs of disease, nips, sores or anything. The high temp may have gotten to him. I think their normal habitat would be 80 degrees or less.
Another possibility is that it got stung by one of these anemone-type things that are growing on my live rock. None of my other fish that I know of have had problems, but I know they sting -- I have felt it myself. Here's a picture. This is the biggest (the disc the tentacles are extending from is the size of nickel), but there's another almost this big and several smaller ones.

If anyone can ID this, I'd appreciate it. And would being stung by one of these leave a mark?
Another possibility is an as-yet unidentified predator. I've lost four peppermint shrimp, about one every couple weeks, with no sign of them anywhere. No remains or anything. No clicking noises, at least not since the pistol shrimp himself (which I only witnessed once) went MIA three months ago. But this is unlikely, since in this case I have a full corpse with no marks...
I rechecked my SG, and it is high -- 1.025. I'm going to do a water change with some low-salinity water.
Beth, thanks for being good-natured about the QT thing. I don't want to be an irresponsible hobbyist, but there's only so much you can do when your living room is 8'x12'. I'm considering a 5-gallon aquarium or a 5- to 7-gallon trash can for a QT, since I could fit that in the cabinet under the tank.

 

[bang guy]

I'm very sorry for your loss
I truly don't believe it was heat related. If it was an infection there was probably nothing you could do. Most fish stores will keep a fish on hold for you if they just came in...
The coral pictured is an ahermatypic coral (needs no light) It's impossible to positively ID with a picture but my guess would be Astrangia sp. It eats chunky meaty foods and will need a lot of it to survive. It could give a fish a mild sting but nothing serious. They do build calcarious skeletons.
Mathematically, you would need to melt a couple gallons of ice to reduce your temp 1F degree. Try setting up a fan to blow across the top of the water. This can have a BIG effect on tank temp but I think your temp is fine.
I also believe your salinity is perfect.

 

[beth]

Bang, everything I have ever read says that the acceptable range for maintaining your average reef tank is between 72-80 degrees, with some exceptions, of course, if you are attempting to simulate a fringing or shallow reef with organisms that are compatible with the higher temps in these setups.
Higher temps do have negative effects on water stability/quality in aquaria, which can be addressed by the hobbyist, if, for whatever reason, the hobbyist wants to maintain a tank in this above normal range. Black Dog cited his water temp as 84-degrees, annotating that it was “very hot here now.” I took that to mean that the temperature in his tank was representative of excessive heat at his location which was not typical [the norm, or even desirable]. Extrapolating from this, perhaps presumptively, I thought that perhaps he was experiencing a sudden spike in tank temp that was not the norm for his system [otherwise, why did he bother to make a special notation following citing the temp in his tank?]. Under this assumption, I suggested to him that temp could very likely be the culprit with the new fish. Also, I would never suggest to melt down ice within a fish tank.
Black Dog, the gramma fish do exhibit some rather odd swimming/positioning behaviors which can be mistaken for a sick fish; however, since you said that the fish was on the substrate gasping, I didn’t associate your fish’s behavior with what is considered normal for this species. It could be that the LFS just received this fish, and the fish suffered shock from varying acclimation/environmental stressors….who knows at this point what caused the fish to die? Grammas are both tank raised and wild captured. The issues involved in acclimating a wild-captured fish to the aquarium is obvious.
If you are not going to setup a QT, my suggestion would be to let any new fish you wish to acquire remain at the LFS for a week or more so that you can observe the fish’s health. A reputable seller should keep new arrivals for at least this long anyway. Be informed about your LFS’s maintenance of his tanks/ his acclimation practices and his supplers’ practices.
Sorry for your loss.

 

[bang guy]

Beth - Yep, You noticed that the 84 temp was probably a spike and not a normal parameter for Black Dog's Gramma. And the fish was probably kept a lower temps are the dealer's holding tank.
I've started a new thread about normal reef temperatures. I'm interested in opposing views. In the old days we kept tanks at very low temperatures sometimes as low as 76. Truth be told we probably had better success only because reef animals died slower at lower temperatures.

 

[blackdog]

Bang Guy ((just got the play on words ), thanks for the ID on the coral. Your description sounds like what I have. I've been very curious what they are. I was actively feeding them chunks of scallop and shrimp for a while, until they started growing too fast and I realized I could be creating a monster. The photo does a decent job of showing how the tentacles are very pretty and crystalline. My live rock also has numerous patches of cladocora arbuscula, which are interesting, and at least half a dozen mussels and clams, which I believe are part of the reason my water quality is doing so well. I love my Florida Gulf rock!
Beth, you are exactly right that I made a note next to the temp because that was out of the ordinary. Usually, my temp ranges from 78 at night to 80 in the day. My comment about 84 being high for a gramma is based on my understanding that they are a Caribbean species--I have seen them diving--where the temp usually doesn't go much above 80. I have seen the odd swimming angles you mentioned. It had me concerned at first when he was in the bag from the LFS until I rechecked one of my books. I'm disappointed. He was a charming little fish. I think it may be time to look into a different source for livestock.