Sick Niger Trigger?

[DogglesPuffer]

Hi everyone, I'm new here and have seen how welcoming and helpful you guys are, so I'm hoping someone will have had a similar experience and be able to help. For a couple weeks now, my Niger Trigger, who is usually zooming around the tank, has been very lethargic, there are two particular spots in the tank where he always is...and he's just kind of resting on rock, leaning on his side. He isn't coming out of the rocks to eat or swim or anything. Couple times I had to tap the glass where he was to make sure that he was still alive. I'm not entirely sure that he's eating, except for the fact that he's still around three weeks since this behavior has come about. Other than that, he's moving around between the two spots in the tank like normal, and he looks completely fine (with regards to his body, fins, eyes etc.) on the odd occasion when I am able to spot him. But his behavior shift is so radical that I am wondering if maybe he could still be sick.

Almost three weeks ago, my fiancé was in Spain (it's his tank, and I just help out) and the electricity went off from 8am to 8pm, so the chiller and the filtration were off....I was kind of hysterical trying to get everything back up and running and i couldn't get in touch with him at all. Once the system was back up, all the fish were ok (albeit a lot stressed) except for him, cause he was kind of lying on his side on the sand looking so sick. I definitely thought he wouldn't survive...and I think his behavior totally changed since then.

He's my favorite fish and I really don't know how to help him or what could be causing this. I'm hoping he's maybe just being cautious and moody after the power outage but

If you guys need a little background on the tank, it's a 300 gallon, fish only tank with an external sump....we have about 26 fish in with him, but he has never had any issue of being bullied or fighting with any of the other fish. I tested the water yesterday and all the levels are good. I can post those results if it helps, and I will also try and get some pics of him (it's so hard though because he is consistently hiding) Hope someone can help. Apologies for the long post, but thanks in advance for the help.

 

[IPisces]

No need to apologize. The more info the better. Please post the parameters. It would be helpful.
There are a lot of knowledgeable people here. Hopefully we can help you.

Sent from my SCH-I405 using Tapatalk 2

 

[DogglesPuffer]

Hi IPisces, and thanks Ok, so the parameters from yesterday (I couldn't think of the word to use just now so I just said results.... ) were:
Saltwater High Range: 7.8
Saltwater Nitrate: 0/ppm
Fresh and Saltwater Nitrite: 0.25
Saltwater Ammonia: 0.25

We were actually planning to do a large water change today to see if it would help at all.....we didn't get the chance to, but it's first on my agenda for tomorrow. What makes everything even harder is that where we live, people who have saltwater tanks are so few and far between, so nobody really has the experience to say that you could call them up, or call someone to check your tank :'( And it kind of sucks. The other day I was looking for some brine shrimp to feed to them (because usually he rushes to grab the shrimp at feeding time....and I figured I would try to entice him) I went to about a dozen pet stores....and nada.....

I passed by the tank on my way out and tried to take a pic....he's wedged into some rocks in one of his hiding places.....trigger up and locked so, needless to say it's not the best pic. We'll take the cover off of the tank tomorrow (it's an enormous Teak lid) and i'll see if I can get any better ones using my Portal-viewer.

 

[DogglesPuffer]

So this is him Looking normal....but behaving far from it.....sure hope you guys can help me with my lil monster.

 

[pandora32]

Ph is definately low. Raise it to 8.2. Your amonia needs to read 0. You didnt put a temp in with the parameters. Are you ising test strips to test your water? Whats your salinity? I had a naso tang recently die from black ick. Oh yea, black ick. With the niger being so dark, it would be hard to see it. But for sure, your amonia needs to be dealt with.

 

[DogglesPuffer]

Hi pandora, ok great....the tank is definitely gonna be my project for tomorrow All the other parameters you asked for, I will check them first thing in the morning when I get back to the tank. Um, to test the water we have a kit, like with test tubes and different bottles of test chemicals that you have to put a certain amount of drops in the tube....are the test strips a better way to test? I've never seen them here (in Trinidad) but for sure I would order them online if that's what you guys recommend. Sorry, i'm a bit of a noob at this stuff....I only recently started helping with the tank, testing and cleaning etc. But I will have the info you asked for up on the thread tomorrow.

 

[james734]

To add to what has we mentioned before the Ammonia and Nitrite need to be 0. Assuming the testing is accurate. Anything above 0 can and is very toxic to the tank inhabitants. As for the PH, again assuming the testing is accurate, is low also. And should be raised to 8.2-8.3. You don't mention ALK which I going to assume is low due to the low PH. Be careful raising the PH to fast I wouldn't go more than .2 up in 24hrs. The biggest thing you can do right now to get the params in check is a large water change. This will help dilute the ammonia and nitrites. On a side note when doing the water change on 300 gallon tank you're looking at needing about 50-100 gallons of pre made saltwater that's been mixing for 24hrs. Freshly made saltwater can be very caustic to the fish gills. But doing this for the next few days will hopefully help.

Good luck.

 

[james734]

Stick with the tests you're using. Test strips are notorious inaccurate. Good for a quick test but not a good means of provide actual results.

Has anything died in the tank recently? How long has the tank been up? It's unusually to see a increase in ammonia and nitrite in an established tank. Has anything else been added recently to increase the Bio load on the tank? With increase the these to params something has caused the tank cycle. Are you feeding more than normal?

 

[DogglesPuffer]

Thank you james....thank you everyone for being so kind. I will start on the tank tomorrow and keep you all updated.

 

[james734]

No problem and I hope the advice helps out. FYI. I wouldn't do just one water change. You're looking at doing water changes for the next few days to help get the ammonia and nitrites down. Keep up with them until they read 0 on the the test kits and the larger the better at this point.

 

[eartaker]

Focus more on your ammonia and nitrite more so than your pH. pH is important but my Niger does fine is 7.8 when it drops. Do your after changes and feed him. Mine loves a full silver-side or shrimp.

 

[DogglesPuffer]

@James, honestly, I hate to actually say it out loud, but this is the most stable that our tank has been in years. We spent a lot of money to upgrade our filter, put a proper sump outside and ran the piping out of the house, re-wired our chiller, re-did the lights inside the tank and invested in good powerheads. It's been about 5 months since we added anything new into the tank (of which the Trigger was one fish added and a juvenile French Angelfish was the other. Our last death was a Chromis about 6 months ago who got sucked up into the filter. But thankfully no diseases to speak of. The tank has been up for quite a few years now, since before 2008 actually. All our upgrades have been within the last year and a half though. We have some fish in the tank today that survived the Brook outbreak in our tank in 2008 when I joined and started posting. I will try the water changes james, definitely. After the outbreak killed most of our fish, i stayed away from the tank for quite awhile and shed a lot of tears. When my fiance became so busy at work that he just did not have the time to properly maintain the tank, I started helping out....and apparently am back to being attached to a particular fish (who is now sick ) I seem to be lucky that way :'(

 

[DogglesPuffer]

Focus more on your ammonia and nitrite more so than your pH. pH is important but my Niger does fine is 7.8 when it drops. Do your after changes and feed him. Mine loves a full silver-side or shrimp.

Mine used to looooovvvvvveeeee him some shrimp too I tried throwing in a couple these last few weeks to see if I could entice him to come out....so far, nothing
I'm assuming he's eating though because even though I haven't actually seen him eating, he's still alive after three weeks right? And he's not losing weight from what I can tell. Gosh, I tell u.....I'd give him anything in the world to eat right now if it would make him come out and swim a lap around the tank

 

[james734]

Well I'm going to honest here also. Sometimes things just happen in this hobby. You're doing what you've been doing for a long time, everything doing great and out of the blue something happens. Be algae issues, loss of animal, etc. We all do our best at this and though a lot of it is a science, water params etc. some of it is out of our control. Fish get sick, animals die as hard it may be these things happen.

Remember, nothing good happens fast in a reef tank.

 

[DogglesPuffer]

I totally understand what you are sayin and I will remember all you have said, but that being said, I guess the best thing I can do right now to avert/avoid a potential crisis, is to get started on the tank, which I will....asap! Thanks and I will update!

 

[james734]

Show how's the Trigger?

 

[pandora32]

Dont do a very large water change at 1 time for sure! Spread it out. Reason i asked bout the test strips was because when i was reading your post, thats what it sounded like. I was hoping you werent. When my naso got sick, i had a hose come apart on my uv, which in turn pretty much emptied out my sump. So i mixed up 25+ gallons of fresh saltwater and just sumped it in. Im not saying thats what got him sick, but 2 days after this is when i saw a few spots on him. Theres a whole story of "crap" that jappened after the flood, but i dont want to type it all out again.

 

[pandora32]

Forgot, is it possible for you to catch it and put it in qt?

 

[DogglesPuffer]

Hi guys. Um...well he's still looking extremely sick, but I guess it was wishful thinking on my part to just think that after the water change he would be back to his usual gregarious self. @pandora, we are doing small water changes over a couple days time instead of one massive water change. We did our first change yesterday and I'm waiting a couple hours again to check the parameters once they settle down. He's moving around some, more than he previously was since he's been sick, but he's still mostly napping and looking sick

 

[senji]

might start thinking of quarantining him. just to make sure it don't spread and u can medicate and monitor closer and keep water cleaner.