Lost our lionfish tonight.

[MoonInTn]

Just as the title says, we lost our volitan lionfish tonight. Literally watched him die and nothing we could do. Needless to say, we're pretty bummed out. We had him for about five months, but we just can't figure out what caused it. For the last three or four weeks, he had only eaten once, and a small amount at that. He had also turned to a very deep/dark burgandy color, almost black since he quit eating. We noticed something might be wrong when he turned color so we started checking water parameters. Everything has stayed the same the entire time. The only difference would be that the temp would rise about 1 1/2 degrees during the heat of the day. It would go from about 78 in the mornings, up to about 79.5 during the day. I don't think that would be much of a problem. Could I be wrong???

Also, there was also a three inch fuzzy dwarf lionfish in there with him. Is it possilble that the fuzzy might have stung it? Could that be what killed him??? And, we had put a long tentacle anemone in the tank too. We had it and a bubble tip anemone in one tank but they kept running into each other so we split them up and put the long tentacle in the fish only tank until we could figure out what to do. Is it possible that the anemone stung it??? We just can't figure out what happened. Everything in the tank seems to be thriving. Well, except of course the volitan. The only things in the tank were the volitan, the fuzzy, the anemone, and an urchin to help clean some algea. Any ideas on what might have happened???

[justinl]

sorry to hear about the loss. they are cool fish.

were there any swollen lesions on the fish where it might have been stung by either the fuzzy or anemone?

my own volitan goes darker (like you described) every night. when active it goes lighter. did yours do that? or only on its last leg of life?

[MoonInTn]

Thanks justinl. When I got him out of the water I checked him out from end to end and didn't see any places on him that looked like he might have been stung.

He would go a little darker at night, but just a little. He didn't get this dark until about three weeks ago. And never did brighten back up. Don't know what happened to the guy.

[dendro982]

Sorry about your loss, the lions are the beautifuls fish with a good character.
Mine (not dwarf) had such spells of almost not eating, but we put the feeders gut-loaded shost shrimp and a fish (small chromises) in the tank, so he had a choice - to hunt or not to hunt. After that, he had a visible maturatin, if this is a proper term, the lion became wider and better looking, than even before.

[MoonInTn]

Thanks dendro. The volitan, (the one that died), had been eating anything we gave him for several months. Almost from the first day we got him. A couple weeks ago we even tried putting in some live feeders to see if it would stimulate him to eat. Of course that didn't work either. Could it have just been his time to go? Even at less than a year old?

Maybe I need to quit analyizing this and just accept it and go on. But I'd like to figure out what might have happened to make sure it didn't happen again and keep the other lion, the fuzzy safe and happy.

[thepudge]

Sometimes fish die for no discernible reason. As long as everything else looks healthy and happy I would just chalk it up to an unexplained fatality and go get another volitan :)

[MoonInTn]

Pudge, that's just what I'm starting to lean toward. Just one of those unexplained deaths. I've tried all day long to try to think of some reason why he died, and, to try to think if I've noticed anything out of sorts with the rest of the tank. I may just have to get another one. Although, this time maybe I'll get another fuzzy and they'll have more than enough room. Or, maybe something besides a lion to go with the fuzzy.

Anyway, thanks to everybody who has tried to help.

[dougie]

sorry to hear :(