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Trigger not swimming with heavy breathing (1 Viewer)

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Tenny

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So last Wednesday (10/14) I received an order of quarantined fish from Qurantinedfish.us with two pintail fairy wrasse, and a blue chin / jaw triggerfish.

I acclimated them appropriately and got them all into little critter containers within the tank. After 24 hours I released the two wrasse, and about 6 hours after the wrasse I released the trigger. They all seemed to be just fine, but the wrasse was harassed in the first few minutes by my powder brown tang, but that stopped pretty quickly.

The trigger the whole time was very shy, but still swimming around and eating just fine. The wrasse were fine the whole time, very active and not being harassed by anyone in the tank.

On about Saturday the trigger decided his favorite hiding spot was in my rock that contained all my anemone's. I was very worried about it being so closed to the anemone's but I figure he's a fish he knows better and what could I do anyways?

On Wednesday I fed him some krill with some long tweezer's that I have. He grabbed them aggressively and all was fine. If I wasn't walking around or standing in front of the tank for the most part he was swimming around. For the most part he stayed around the area of the tank with the Anemone's. So gnerally I felt he was just afraid of us, and not the other fish. I hadn't seen a fish be aggressive towards him since the first day.

Thursday he didn't come out at all. He didn't eat krill via the tweezers. Didn't come out when I fed the tank. I shined a flashlight in his area and saw him move so I knew he was alive at least. I didn't get a chance to watch the tank much, so I don't know if he came out at all.

Today, he's sticking out a bit further but breathing very rapidly. I tried feeding him krill again and he showed no interest. I even bumped it up against his mouth and he just moved back further in. He's very lethargic with his movements.

Video: New video by Drew Price

The only thing I can think of is he was stung by the anemone's at this point. I can attempt to remove him, but I don't think it'll go well as it'll cause him a lot of stress and it'd likely involve tearing down a lot of the tank. I don't think he has any diseases based on him coming from qurantinedfish.us and all the other items (coral, invert, fish) have gone through a QT themselves.

Don't know what to do at this point other than watch him.
 

steveb

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Have you been able to see any of the other fish may be bullying it?

I had a clown tang for while that would randomly every couple of hours go berserk towards my lineatus wrasse and would then be fine again for a while.
 
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Tenny

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Have you been able to see any of the other fish may be bullying it?

I had a clown tang for while that would randomly every couple of hours go berserk towards my lineatus wrasse and would then be fine again for a while.
I haven't seen any other fish bully it. The clowns just kinda watch it... my thought was maybe they bullied it or are keeping it from there. But they just watch it without charging it. Just swim over look at it, then swim away.

The PBT and Kole Eye fight eachother all the time every other month there's a big cut on one of them. The clowns sometime attack my valentini puffer, but it doesn't care. Haven't seen any other aggression in the tank really.
 

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Is that a maroon clown near him? If so, my money is on the clown harassing him, especially if he is hanging around the clown's nems. Those maroons can be very mean.
 
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Tenny

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Is that a maroon clown near him? If so, my money is on the clown harassing him, especially if he is hanging around the clown's nems. Those maroons can be very mean.
He's def in the Maroon territory, but I haven't seen aggression towards him from the maroon clowns. Of course they could be when I'm not looking. If that's the case what are my options realistically? He decided that's where he wants to stay?
 

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Considering the clown looks as big as the trigger, it may not end well for the trigger. If that is a blue jaw, they are pretty passive, even though they are very energetic. Maybe if you can get him to come out, you can block that hole and force him to find another cave. They need caves to sleep in so maybe you can rearrange some rocks on the other side of the tank and make a new place that he will like.
 
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Tenny

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Well the trigger has moved. I have no idea where it has moved to, but at least it's not in that spot. There are a fair amount of other hiding spots in the tank, so it should have a better safer spot away from the clowns.

I noticed the kole eye has some damage on it from the anemone. I have too many anemone's in this tank... they just keep splitting because the clowns feed them so much, but they haven't left the rock so I haven't tried to remove them... Once they leave the rock I pull them out...

1603491017434.png
 

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As mentioned above, Blue Jaws can sometimes be extremely passive and cryptic. Especially when first introduced into a new tank. It's kinda crazy to think of them that way when you consider it is a Triggerfish after all.

Also, have you contacted the vendor about this issue?
 
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Tenny

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As mentioned above, Blue Jaws can sometimes be extremely passive and cryptic. Especially when first introduced into a new tank. It's kinda crazy to think of them that way when you consider it is a Triggerfish after all.

Also, have you contacted the vendor about this issue?
Yes I contacted Qurantinedfish.us and he's been awesome. Saying he'll replace it if it goes south. I don't feel that's necessary. If he doesn't make it I feel it's the environment and not the fish.

I still haven't seen him since earlier. Will update as any new info becomes available.
 
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Tenny

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Well sadly he didn't make it through the night.

I am not sure what happened because it went from him eating from the tweezers on Wednesday to not coming out of his cave at all on Thursday.

Really the only thing I can think of is he was stung by the anemone. I had that happened to a yellow tang years ago. Something probably spooked them while swimming around and it drove them into getting stung.
 
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