Really quick f8 puffer death, do you know why? :(

[seafeatures]

This morning I quite unexpectedly lost my f8, and I've been Googling all morning without finding much that it could be.

First off I'll list all my tank params. He was alone in a cycled (I did fishless cyling before I got him with media/dirty water from my other tanks) 20g long, substrate a mix of about equal parts marine sand and crushed coral. There were plastic plants, fish-safe decor like castles, etc. and a flowerpot for a cave that I had boiled and has been in there since I got him. The tank has a Marineland Penguin bio-wheel HOB power filter. I use Start Right to dechlorinate my water and the Petco brand marine salt. Specific gravity steady at 1.008.

He ate raw unpeeled cocktail shrimp and clams from the seafood counter at the grocery store, also ghost shrimp and snails (but the latter two not recently). I would give him a piece and watch him until his belly was slightly rounded and then remove it every day, skipping one day a week. He always had a good appetite and wasn't too picky. I did 10% water changes every day after he ate (he was wicked messy and I didn't like bits of shrimp hanging around in his tank) and a 30% water change on the weekends. I tested the water every day for s.g. and every other day for ammonia and nitrites/ates.

I don't think I had made any changes in the past week. The tank has been set up for a bit over a month as it is now. Last week I posted about how he puffed underwater accidentally, but he was fine after that.

Last night I fed him a piece of shrimp that I thawed in tank water. It had been in the freezer five days in a food-safe container. I watched him eat, he was eating normally, belly was white, nice bright color. After his belly was rounded I took the remaining shrimp out, and did a quick water change. He was swimming around like his usual self when I went to bed a few hours later with normal color and clear eyes.

I woke up and he was stuck to the filter, dead. His head was normal size but his stomach was really, really skinny, like he was starving. His fins had a whitish cast near his body, not at the ends. Belly was still white, no white spots, nothing looked out of the ordinary except that he was dead and super skinny and the white cast on his fins that might have developed after he died. He had never been ill since I got him and always looked well fed and healthy.

Ammonia was at 0, nitrites 0, nitrates 30ppm. I'm not sure how long he was dead so that could account for the slightly higher nitrates.

I am at a loss, I'm thinking internal parasites, because of the extreme skinniness? But what kind of internal parasite could kill an otherwise healthy f8 that ten hours before had a full belly and had never previously shown any symptoms of skinniness? I feel like it must have been something in the shrimp, but what could be in a raw shrimp from the seafood counter that I froze a day after I bought it? Could it have been some crazy strain of fish TB?

I really miss the little guy and I feel terrible. I don't want to get another until I figure out what this was, and it's going to be hard to go to the fish store and tell them when everybody knows me there as the girl who comes in to net snails for her puffer. I even have Jungle Fungus Parasite Clear tabs for my betta fish but I didn't have time to try to treat the little guy before he died.

Is there anything I can do to prevent this from happening again, and should I break down my tank and sterilize it before possibly getting another?

[Pandora114]

Sounds like he had Internal parasites.

Look up some Gel-Tek UltracurePX and grab it. Might find it online or at a pet store. For your next puff treat his food with that and watch miracles happen.

[seafeatures]

I will definitely purchase that before getting another figure eight, thanks.

[LilGreenPuffer]

It's surprising that IPs would make him lose weight so quickly. If you still have the body, you could dissect it and see if there are worms in his belly. Still, I can't think of anything else.

[pufferpuggirl]

Can I ask if you ever seen any of his poop? Any black excrement on the substrate? Any white stringy looking stuff?
I just think it's really odd that he appeared healthy and round in body, then to become that skinny over-night. Usually you see a gradual change with IP's .... but I suppose anything is possible.

I am very sorry for your loss.

[seafeatures]

I have seen his poop and it was always dark, never white. White poop would have immediately made me suspicious because that's a sign of parasites in betta fish.

I am baffled how he could appear completely healthy and in a matter of hours become emaciated and die.

I'm not sure if I can bring myself to cut open his stomach but I suppose at this point it's probably a good idea to see if there is anything unusual in it.

[pufferpuggirl]

When my Congo died and I wasn't sure why and there was no obvious reason for it, I thought about cutting him open and taking a look, but in the end, I could not do it. But that's just me.

[Myaj]

I had a SAP die unexpectedly once and I did cut it open.. found an undigested beetle shell.. I don't know for sure, but I think a bug (it was a box elder beetle) fell in the tank, he ate it, and couldn't digest the shell (or maybe it was because he swallowed it whole instead of crunching it). Or maybe it was just a coincidence and he died before the shell had time to digest.

But my point is, if it hadn't been for that shell, I would have had no idea what I was looking at in there anyways.. But finding the shell gave me some peace of mind. If I hadnt found it, I probably would have felt worse for cutting the body open.. so I don't know what to tell you.

The belly may have appeared sunken in from being sucked to the filter intake.. puffer skin is super flexible and stretchy.. ?

[seafeatures]

I tried to find his belly, but his skin was so hard to cut through with my x-acto that I couldn't get all the way into the stomach. I think I got stuck around the...whatever is near the beginning of the tail muscle and then I couldn't cut him anymore because it was pretty hard to slice him open. There was white stringy stuff in the organ I cut into that could have been just necrotic tissue or worms, admittedly I thought they would look like little white worms but I have no idea if that is what they really look like inside the fish.

The next one will be treated for parasites right off the bat and I hope that one goes better.

[coldmachineUK]

I think it would be extremely odd if it was IPs to blame based on how quick he seems to have deteriorated (less than 24 hours) given that there were also no signs (sunken belly, white/stringy poop) beforehand.

My guess is that it was the food, and possibly the filter intake is responsible for the belly shape as Myaj says.

You can buy gamma-treated food (e.g. cockles, mussels); I'd go with this in future to be on the safe side.

[liquid88]

No more food store shrimp?

[StormySkiez]

Sorry about your loss.

It's very hard to say what the cause of death was. I'm sorry to say this but I wish when my fish get sick they would die fast overnight. I have lost 4 danios to dropsy and one neon to neon tetra disease. No, it's not my water quality. I had to euthanize all 5 fish in the last few months which is extremely hard for me to do. It makes me ill. In the last 2 years In QT I lost 6 guppies, 1 betta, and 7 neons. All of them were ill for a long time and died with treatment. FW tropical fish do not seem to last longer then 2 years for me and I'm not enjoying the short life span.

IMO you never know what kind of health your fish is in when purchased. It's easy for anything to happen to them to get ill and we may never know what the heck the cause is.

coldmachineUK is gamma treated food flash frozen?

[Dadof4]

I routinely use shrimp from the grocery store. I buy them in bulk and freeze them at least 4 weeks to kill off any nastys.

[coldmachineUK]

@Stormyskiez: no, it's gamma irradiated. I purchase mine from this company (typically the bulk packs of cockle in shell, krill, and whole shrimp).

I hear hobbyists saying that freezing food gets rid of any toxins, but I'm not so sure. Bacteria in fish (i.e. cockles, mussels, prawns) is psychrophilic which means it is better prepared constitutively for low temperatures, and typically can be active even at 32F.

[Nick]

It depends on the speed of the freezing. A VERY slow freeze creates HUGE ice crystals, which pierce cell membranes of most bacteria, while a rapid freeze preserves most cell structures, even DNA if it's a VERY fast freeze. Most freezers people have do a fairly slow freeze, which kills pathogens and makes foods more "mushy." Some organisms, of course, have substances which preserve their condition even under slower freezing, but it still does kill many pathogens and of course either reduces or prevents production of waste toxins, which is one of the primary risks of any actively rotting food.