# Diagnosing cause of death in a rescued rbp



## elTwitcho (Jun 22, 2004)

So yesterday I rescued an RBP with deformed mouth from the pet store who was in the process of being killed by it's tankmates. I actually saw the fish go from a few fin nips to big chunks of flesh missing right in front of me, so I got him out of the tank and brought him home in hopes of bringing him back from the brink of death. None of his bites were in areas with vital organs (caudal region, anal fin) and upon inspection of the bites I could see that nothing but muscle and flesh was hit, no organs and it hadn't gone through to it's body cavity. He did sustain one bite to his eye which I felt might have led to blindness eventually.

He had some white around the gills and over his eyes, which I attribute to bad water conditions.

When I got him home, he was alive but was very lethargic and seemed to be having balance issues. His head would often float up towards the surface and at one point he even did a backflip. He didn't seem responsive to the goings on outside the tank, and his eyes would not even move to indicate he could see movement in front of him. When I dropped a piece of fish in to see if he would eat it landed on his back and sat there for a few seconds before he shrugged it off very slowly. By nightfall he was floating sideways, near the bottom of the tank (but not resting on the bottom) and breathing heavily.

I think he died of stress as a result from his injuries and the change of environment, however I'm interested to see if anyone else has any theories. Just for my personal edification as I'm really disapointed I was unable to help this guy.


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## steveling (Jun 6, 2003)

sorry to hear that eltwitcho , when i rescued my serraltus it was similar as he would swim funny for a while , not sure of the reason why yours died maybe as you said loads of stress all at once , bad news he didnt make it but well done done for trying mate


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## Joga Bonito (Oct 30, 2004)

sorry to hear that eltwitcho


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## Scrap5000 (Mar 4, 2005)

damn, that sux, was pulling for the little bugger


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## Sheppard (Jul 8, 2004)

man that sucks..
but that was really good of you to try and save it


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## killerbee (Aug 18, 2004)

That sucks







was this the fish you were going to give to NT, and i suggested the name two face.


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## elTwitcho (Jun 22, 2004)

Yeah same one. I'm pretty disapointed, when I got him out of the tank alive and looked at his injuries i was almost positive he would pull through but I think it was all just too much for him.


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## NegativeCamber (Nov 29, 2004)

My quess would be stress! However, I am awaiting DonH's opinion too! He's the man


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## DonH (Jan 25, 2003)

Sorry to hear that... I think stress is the major contributing factor in its death. When you rescue a fish that is that badly damaged, you also have to consider the internal problems that fish might have (parasites, bacterial, viral, etc.) as well as the external physical wounds. External wounds will heal in time with good water and care but internal wounds are obviously more difficult.

The loss of equilibrium is usually contributed to problems with its swim bladder. It can be viral, bacterial or even caused by trauma. All these things originated from the stress that poor little guy went through along with poor water conditions that made the situation worse. I've seen really badly beaten up fish recover without a problem, but have never seen a fish survive once it starts losing it's equilibrium (i.e. floating upside down or swimming erratically).


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## elTwitcho (Jun 22, 2004)

Thanks alot Don, I'm not sure if there's much I could have done to save him in that case since he was upside down briefly from the moment I got him. At the very least he did get to die peacefully so it's not all bad.

Thanks again


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