Percula Clowns and cyanide?

[mcoomer]

I just tried a search and didn't find anything but I seem to recall reading on here that a lot of these fish are captured using cyanide. The reason I ask is that I added a pair to my 125 and all seemd fine for a month or so then both died within a week of each other. Both fish seemed to be healthy and fed normally but a day or two before each one died I noticed them hanging in a corner of the tank and not in their usual hangout.

This is a 9 year old tank and all other inhabitants are long term, healthy, and active. A check of water parameters showed nothig out of the ordinary and then I remembered the cyanide thing I read. If anyone can confirm this or point me to some info I would appreciate it. I hate having animals die for no apparent reason and would like to know if I'm right.

Thanks,
Mike

[LobsterOfJustice]

Buy captive bred.

[Moonstream]

they wouldnt have survived a month, IMO/E. I had a kauderns cardinal that I think was cyanide caught, he survived for about a week and a half, all the while looking horrible, until he finally died.

if they were healthy for a month, it was NOT cyanide, they would have been stressed/ sick for much longer then that.

[redfishsc]

That sounds like the symptoms I read about a while back about cyanide-caught fish. You oughta see what the cyanide does to the corals in the vicinity of the captured fish. It's ridiculous. Collectors were slaughtering the whole reef just to catch a bucket of minnows.


We can't say for sure your fish were cyanide-caught, but if they were wild caught, it's a possibility.

I would doubt that they were wild caught though, I know in my area I'd have to special order wild caught percs. Every last one of them at my LFS's are tank-raised (GOOD!).


If your fish came from tanks that were low-light, heavily polluted, and poorly fed, then the sheer stress of the move may have killed them. That's why there are certain LFS's in my area that I wouldn't buy catfish bait from.

[greenbean36191]

I think it's highly unlikely you got cyanide caught clowns. Cyanide is mostly used to catch fish that hide in holes in the reef. It's a whole lot less useful for fish out in the open. Clownfish are pretty easy to catch without it anyway since they stand their ground against a diver.