Unusual Bangaii Behavior

[JamisonSmith]

Hi all,

I observed a very unusual event last night with one of my young (2 month old) bangaiis. I had finished feeding probably 5-10 minutes prior and had fed a mixture of BBS and crushed flake. I keep them in a small pal pen hanging on the side of one of my 29 gallons that will be theirs eventually, but for now I can concentrate the food for them. One little guy pretty much instantaneously flaired opened up his mouth and fell over on his side on the bottom of the pal pen, breathing extremely fast. I then proceeded to use a small medicine dropper to gently push water through its mouth and over its gills. I also pulled it out of the water and used one of the tank feeds to pump water at it (not a tremendous amount of flow, but more than the medicine dropper). I then put it back in the water and continued to use the medicine dropper and did this for about 5 minutes. Then its mouth closed back down to normal and I continued to push water over its head and about a minute. At this point it was still on the bottom of the pal pen on its side, breathing extremely hard and fast. I continued to work my magic and almost as quickly as he went down he was back up in a normal position and swimming around. I thought for sure I would find a dead fish this morning but nothing. In fact, I couldn't begin to tell which one it was now.

Has anyone ever observed this? I wonder if I had done nothing would it have died?

It was very bizzare!

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

Jamison

[Kmiec123]

Wow...The Fish CPR Thread. Good job, never heard of this kinda thing or the fish mouth-to-mouth. :) Good work...Carl

[papagimp]

Is the "pen" you have them in a breeder net? or is it plastic with slits cut in it?

I used a breeder net for my first batch of babies and after a while the net would clog up and I did notice a few struggling to "breath". A quick relocation and cleaning of the net made a big difference. I did lose several babies while in there though.

[David M]

What you experienced is very common, often referred to as Sudden Fright Syndrom. Happens to baby bangaii all the time. A door slams, a light goes on or off, you drop the tank lid closed, anything can set it off. They drop right out of the water column and "die". You did exactly right, in fact all you really needed to do was use a spoon or paddle and swirl water around the fish to get water moving thru the gills. Once you do this most often they will jump right back up as you saw. If you don't they just lie there and die. Congrats on your quick thinking considering you really didn't know what was happening.

Try to avoid any sudden actions or loud noises around those guys for a while, they will grow out of it in time.

[JamisonSmith]

David,

Thank you for the information, that is very interesting. I wonder what actually happens to them physiologically, stress-induced heart attack, overload of stress-induced hormones, etc?

I am still amazed at the entire thing. It was probably one of the most bizarre animal behavior things (including non-fish) I have ever seen.

Jamison

[papagimp]

David, Great information there, I'm glad you posted it. I havn't had anything like that happen to any of my babies, and I'm in a noisy house at that. At least I know what to do if I see that behavior.