Info on a death

[skeets]

Well, I lost my first fish in my tank. I have a 120g sps reef tank that is well over a year old. I had 6 fish in the tank, and now have 5. This is my first fish death and I am really disgusted. I feel so horrible.

It was my copperband butterfly that I had to put to sleep today. First the basics... All my other fish look fine, and have looked great ever since the introduction of the copperband about 3 weeks ago. The copperband did eat up all my aiptasia(about 20 only) and ate like a piggy during feedings. I feed mysis/bloodworms/plankton/krill/etc and I also feed live baby brine every other day. The copperband would scarf down both the mysis and live baby brine. So there is no way the fish was starving to death.

Last night when looking in my tank(I have moonlighting on my aquacontroller and was very bright last night as a full moon passed like 3 days ago). I noticed her sucked up against the top of my overflow. I figured she was dead, and I touched her and she didnt move. I then grabbed her back fin and tried to pull her out and then she started moving and darted away into the rockwork. I grabbed a flashlight to check on her and she seemed to be fine. I thought it was very odd behavior, but i dismissed it as saying, "wow i didnt know fish slept so dead to the world".
Well first thing I did this morning was run to my tank and check on her. There she was again stuck to the overflow, and her white was more of a grey color. This time she couldnt swim at all. She could only twich and try to move her fins. I put her to sleep in the freezer and was super bummed out.

I have no idea what may of been the cause of death and I was hoping someone could shed some light on it. I am however considering that it might be cyanide. I have not read up alot on this, but I know that it may be possible to have a death. However, the fish store I bought it from quarantines the fish for 1-2weeks and I got it just as it got outta quarantine. So we could say this fish is close to being 5 weeks old in a aquarium system. She was small, about 2.5''. I did ask the store if it was caught from australia or the indo-pacific, and they said indo-pacific. I do not know if it was caught using cyanide or net.
Anyone have any thoughts?
Thanks

[ATJ]

I'm sorry about your loss.

Did the fish show any signs of anything wrong before you found it stuck to the overflow? What sort of flow rate does the overflow have? Is it possible the flow is so strong that a healthy fish could get sucked into it?

While I can't rule out cyanide, I am somewhat dubious of the aquarist claims about the long time effect of cyanide. I'm not saying it doesn't have a long term effect, but just that all I have heard is aquarist hearsay and there are so many other hobbyist theories that turn out to be exaggerated or just wrong.

The only study into the effects of cyanide of which I am aware showed that cyanide does not affect the intestinal lining, contrary to hobbyist claims. If anyone out there has references to studies confirming or denying the general theories on cyanide, I'd love to hear of them.

By the way, Australia is in the Indo-Pacific. We have the Pacific on our east coast and the Indian on our west.

[skeets]

No signs of any stress or other diseases.

There is no way for a healthy fish to get sucked up against the overflow no... and like i said when i pulled the fish away she just floated around upside down etc, while i went to get a tupperware.

Hmmm... well i am assuming then that indo-pacific does not mean australia indo-pacific, as I am assuming you guys are not using cyanide over there are you?
Here is the 3 lists of copperbands on marinecenter... maybe i was wrong... all are Chelmon rostratus:

Australian Copperband(same price as net collected)
Copperband: Indo/Regular(half the price of australias)
Copperband: Net Collected Australian

[ATJ]

Cyanide is not used in Australian waters.

The "Australian Copperband" probably refers to Chelmon marginalis which are generally found only in Australian waters.

The difference in prices would be very much related to labour rates in Australia versus Indonesia/Philippines. In fact, I would have expected a much larger difference in prices.

As to why the fish died, I'm sorry, I have no idea, especially if there were no other signs.