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Blue Boxfish Not eating (1 Viewer)

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webster1234

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I notice that you have him with your other fish. Is it possible that he doesn't like the competition for food? What if you had him in a 20g long for instance by himself. Those live brine will swim around twitching and enticing for hours. Maybe if he was isolated, he might be inclined to eat. I'm sure that once you get him eating, he will be fine. But if he wasn't eating at LA, and he hasn't eaten for you in two weeks, he may very well reaching the critical zone or point of no return.
 
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I notice that you have him with your other fish. Is it possible that he doesn't like the competition for food? What if you had him in a 20g long for instance by himself. Those live brine will swim around twitching and enticing for hours. Maybe if he was isolated, he might be inclined to eat. I'm sure that once you get him eating, he will be fine. But if he wasn't eating at LA, and he hasn't eaten for you in two weeks, he may very well reaching the critical zone or point of no return.

Yeah, it’s hard to say what will happen. He may very well be running on fumes. How’s his stomach looking?

He might turn into a savage by himself with those Brine Shrimp! :)

I remember a guy bought a pair of clowns once. He didn’t see them after a few months, and thought they had died from a parasite. He assumed they were blown into the rocks and devoured by the CUC.

TWO YEARS LATER....he finds them both ALIVE in one of his overflow boxes!

Talk about reserves!!!!
 
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GotFrogs

GotFrogs

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after 28 days of not eating he finally broke down and is eating! I have seen him eat nori and LRS Reef Frenzy and also try and eat live grass shrimp. Not sure what changed but I have a small glimpse of hope that he might make it. I have been treating him with 15mg/L of CP for 17 days now. Perhaps he had some type of internal parasites that were making him unhappy? In not so good news, I has a Live Aquaria delivery yesterday for a female boxfish that arrived DOA.
Video of him eating
 

Bigfishy

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after 28 days of not eating he finally broke down and is eating! I have seen him eat nori and LRS Reef Frenzy and also try and eat live grass shrimp. Not sure what changed but I have a small glimpse of hope that he might make it. I have been treating him with 15mg/L of CP for 17 days now. Perhaps he had some type of internal parasites that were making him unhappy? In not so good news, I has a Live Aquaria delivery yesterday for a female boxfish that arrived DOA.
Video of him eating

Glad he is eating. That is awesome news!


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GotFrogs

GotFrogs

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So he stopped eating about 4 days after he was doing well. It has been close to a week now that I have not seen him eat. Nothing has changed in the setuop and I have been keeping up with water changes every few days and am on day 25 of the CP treatment. Should I treat him with antibiotics or Prazipro? I am concerned that he still has something wrong with him. He will look at the food but not go for it. I have had him for 66 days now and really don't want to lose him. Not sure what I shoud do!
 

reeftopia

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Just got my blue line eating after 10 days, black mussels from heb. If you haven't done a fresh water dip that may hep also.
That needs to be done while still in good health
 

webster1234

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Not eating sounds like something internal to me, not external. CP only helps with external parasites. I would look into something like metro. You can treat the water and the fish will absorb it. Seachem's brand is metroplex I think. I think the Prazipro only helps with external flukes. I'm not sure that it works on anything internal.
 
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GotFrogs

GotFrogs

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Why do you think CP only works on external parasites? So you think it may still be parasites and not an infection? I will look into metro.
 

chris85

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If you want to come down I can get you some oysters to try and maybe a mussel or clam if i can find one. I can also get some sea lettuce to see if it will eat that!!
 
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GotFrogs

GotFrogs

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If you want to come down I can get you some oysters to try and maybe a mussel or clam if i can find one. I can also get some sea lettuce to see if it will eat that!!

Chris - Thanks for the offer but I don’t think that is necessary. I still have some of the live shrimp and have small frozen clams along with every frozen food you can think of. For the few days that he hid eat, he ate everything including pellets. Hopefully this recent treatment will help.
 

RR-MAN

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Chris - Thanks for the offer but I don’t think that is necessary. I still have some of the live shrimp and have small frozen clams along with every frozen food you can think of. For the few days that he hid eat, he ate everything including pellets. Hopefully this recent treatment will help.

I'm not an expert but after 66 days I don't think you are dealing with any internal infection/parasite - the fish would've not survived that many days without a good healthy immune system especially with a minimal food intake.

sometimes we stress fish more by trapping and Quarantining them. These are wild caught so sometimes you are dealing with an extremely finicky eating fish. This could be that extreme case. Hopefully things turn around soon.
 
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I have used CP with mixed results in the past. I know CP has suppressed the appetites of several fish I treated in the past causing them to not eat at all.
 

Bigfishy

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I hope he starts eating again.


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webster1234

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I have used CP with mixed results in the past. I know CP has suppressed the appetites of several fish I treated in the past causing them to not eat at all.
According to humblefish, there are several fish that CP will do just that to. Those are hippo tangs, anthias, and wrasses. Now it's possible depending on the dosage that boxfish might be included in that list. They are so uncommon that maybe no one has tried CP with boxfish.

It might be a good idea to cease treatment based on that right there. I'm not sure if the effects were reversed on the fish that didn't respond well to CP or not. Good observation.
 
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I missed the sticky on CP not being good for anthias. I purchased two healthy bourbonius anthias and put them in QT. They ate fine for several days until I added CP. After the CP was introduced they hid in pvc and barely came out and completely stopped eating. They both eventually died a week later.
 

saltyanimals

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I've gone back and forth on getting a box fish myself. Finally settled on the yellow and black spotted one for the smaller size as an adult. Walked into a LFS and had a discussion and the owner actually had one of his go nuclear and take out the tank. We've all heard of the warning, but I've also read on countless places that no one has actually experienced it. That made me think twice about it now. damn ignorance was bliss. lol. Well that and I can't seem to find one locally anyways.
 
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