about queen angel

[talonix]

Had a lovely queen angel for ages, and this morning I couldn't find him anywhere. I thought he was just hiding really well, so I stripped the rocks apart and found him. He was in perfect condition last night, about to get moved into a bigger tank tomorrow, but now he's dead. The only other fish in the tank are a baby leopard wrasse and a yellow tang - the queen was about 5-6". Any ideas? No clean up crew in this tank.

Water parameters are:
ph 8.4
amm 0ppm
nitrite 0ppm
nitrate 5ppm
temp 26°C
salt 1.024

The yellow tang is really peaceful, had him about 4 years and he's never touched anything. The weird thing is, there's not a mark on the queen angel - it's driving me mad.

[rusticfox]

May have been carrying something internally or got spooked after lights out and panicked into the rockwork, stress can be a killer. I've seen it before, fish get stuck and it's all over. Either way, it's a real shame, queen angels are truly stunning.

[talonix]

Hi buddy,

I'm still scratching my head over this, no holes in the rock to get stuck in, and only 5 rocks in the tank, it's been fine for 3 years. I'm not seeing any aggression in the tank, so I'm really struggling to understand what's happened here.

[rusticfox]

It's frustrating when this happens, especially after having the queen angel settled for so long. Was he eating something he shouldn't have, maybe picking at something, or perhaps ingesting sand by mistake? It's always confusing when they just drop out of nowhere like that.

[talonix]

hi buddy its a bare bottom tank so no chance of him ingesting anything he's eaten every food i've given him, just can't get my head around what's happened to him.

[felinxo]

Really sorry to hear that, such a shame about your lovely queen angel, my condolences.

[rileyon]

gutted, just lost my beautiful queen angel, was looking forward to moving him to a bigger tank tomorrow, and now he's just gone, no signs of illness or stress, had him for a while, and he was perfect last night, just can't understand what happened, was eating fine, no aggression in the tank, just me, the yellow tang, and the baby leopard wrasse, all was well, and then this, really don't know what to think.

[talonix]

just had a thought, maybe my baby toalstool leopard wrasse ate something he shouldn't, possibly choked on it, dont know, just a thought, fish can choke on stuff like that, right?

[rusticfox]

Toads can release some pretty potent toxins when their skin's broken or they're bitten... could be that your angel had one nip too many and got poisoned, scott.

[talonix]

just did something i'm not proud of, dissected my queen angel to find the cause of death and i found a huge bristle worm inside him, about 4" long but only 1.5mm wide, reason why he was eating the flesh before passing away. still got chunks coming off my toadstool so it wasnt him that i thought might have caused it, but my black rock crab was the culprit. i know it was a bad thing to do but i needed to know what happened and now i have my answer, the bristle worm was the problem.