B. Butis

[TammyLiz]

This guy has quickly become my favorite fish! He is a Butis butis, aka "crazy goby" aka "alligator gudgeon". I have only had him for a couple of weeks. He has been laying around a lot but they're not super active fish so I wasn't overly concerned. Then tonight his color got real dark and I started to get concerned because he was on white sand so should have been a lighter color. Now he is laying on his side gasping and his vent looks swollen and white.

Salinity is not very high as I haven't had him for long so I'm working up slowly to let the biofilter keep up. I'm not sure how high because I don't have a refractometer, only a hydrometer. So its probably not high enough for the hydrometer to read.

I checked ammonia and nitrite and both are 0.

I added about a half gallon of full sea water to the 20 gallon tank last night. I'm wondering if I should add more? Or if the raise in salinity might have affected him poorly? (although I doubt that) Also I fed him some bloodworms last night and I'm not sure but maybe they were bad. They got left out on the counter once for a day and then refrozen. Err..I probably shouldn't have fed them to him. This morning he got some frozen (and definitely not spoiled) mysis shrimp but I don't think he ate them.

Help! What should I do? I'm afraid there is nothing and its too late.

 

[TammyLiz]

Aurgh! Yes it was too late. He was dead when I woke up this morning.

After I typed up the post last night and hit post I knew it must have been from the bloodworms. There is no other explanation. Before I went to bed I said a prayer for him. I didn't do a water change because the water was perfect so there was no point. I added a little more saltwater, and put in some colloidal silver. If I had some other anti-bacterial med I would have done that but I had the colloidal silver for myself and it was the only thing I could think to do.

Its killing me. I wish life were not so fragile.

 

[WILDER]

You can't refreeze frozen foods its bad.
Darker in colour, being bloated and enlarged anus is a sign of dropsy.
R.I.P.

Also enlarged anus and being bloated can be signs of internal parasites, so keep a check on what it looks like when the fish go the toilet,

 

[TammyLiz]

Hi Wilder,

It didn't look like dropsy to me because he wasn't bloated. You may be right about the parasites, though, because he was wild caught. I am also treating a puffer in another tank for internal parasites right now, and although I try to be careful I may have done something without thinking (have a bad habit of not thinking sometimes when I am tired), and contaminated this tank from that one.

I feel like the thing with the bloodworms is such a noob mistake that I should have avoided. I almost threw them away and then thought "nah, they still look red (not brown) and I've heard of people getting these through the mail and still using them". I have personally advised people NOT to use bloodworms after getting them through the mail (defrosted), and here I go doing it myself after accidentally leaving them on the counter. I am so mad at myself.

 

[WILDER]

Once the bloodworm had thawed out you could of kept them a day or two then throw them away, but you cannot freeze frozen foods again.
If you havent sterlalised equipment desease can spread that way.
Sign os internal parasites are being thin or bloated, long stringy white poo or clear, enlarged anus, or red inflamed anus.
Worms prutruding from the anus.

 

[TammyLiz]

Do you mean clear as in the anus being clear? Because I was thinking it did look a little transparent which I thought was strange. It was not red. I didn't see any worms or even any poo at all. He really hadn't been eating very well and I chalked that up to being new, which I still it probably was because I have found that to be typical of wild caught fish.

 

[WILDER]

I mean clear mucas poo is a sign of internal parasites.