Sick banggai cardinalfish?

[BubbleTrouble]

One of the banggai cardinals I have in my 13.5g tank has not been a great eater since I got them approx end of September.

 

He is now not swimming well, being pulled towards the intake of the tank. It's stomach is quite small, visibly no food intake.  The other fish is a much stronger swimmer and eats well.

 

I'm not sure what to do 😭

[seabass]

I usually have problems saving fish at this stage.  I assume that you've tried feeding frozen mysis shrimp.  They can be really picky eaters.

 

It's possible that he's holding fry.  Their instincts to reproduce sometimes outweigh their instinct to survive.  I finally lost my male after a few years of breeding.  Males don't get much of a break between keeping the babies in his mouth and the next batch of eggs.

[BubbleTrouble]

9 hours ago, seabass said:

I usually have problems saving fish at this stage.  I assume that you've tried feeding frozen mysis shrimp.  They can be really picky eaters.

 

It's possible that he's holding fry.  Their instincts to reproduce sometimes outweigh their instinct to survive.  I finally lost my male after a few years of breeding.  Males don't get much of a break between keeping the babies in his mouth and the next batch of eggs.

Do you think they would have bred at this point? I have seen him eat little bugs and critters that crawl around in nooks and crannies of the tank, and he chases the frozen mysis shrimp but hasn't eaten them.

 

His fins are getting ripped up from resting against rocks 😰

 

Is it time to mercy kill him?

[seabass]

1 hour ago, BubbleTrouble said:

His fins are getting ripped up from resting against rocks 😰

 

Is it time to mercy kill him?

That's always such a tough decision for me.  A male keeping babies in his mouth should be able to swim in the open as usual.  So there must be something wrong.  It's amazing that a fish will starve to death before feeding on something which isn't alive.  Especially, when another fish of the same species is eating this food just fine.

 

Providing live food to a fish this size usually isn't very practical.  I'm not sure if food is the issue, or if it's another problem.  I might euthanize if it refuses to eat and is continuing to deteriorate.  When it's painful to look at the fish (because it's doing so poorly), then it might be time.

[demonclownfish]

If you have an LFS nearby that sells live brine shrimp 99% of finicky eaters will eat them. Soak them in diluted selcon/garlic first and slowly ween off them

 

[BubbleTrouble]

23 hours ago, demonclownfish said:

If you have an LFS nearby that sells live brine shrimp 99% of finicky eaters will eat them. Soak them in diluted selcon/garlic first and slowly ween off them

 

Good to have in mind for future picky eaters. 

 

Swim in peace, the poor boy was doing even worse today so he has been euthanized.