What the heck happened to my hump head?

Background - I bought 2 humpheads from a wholesaler yesterday. Both seemed to acclimate just fine into my shoal of silver dollars and were eating within an hour or two. Both were eating today as well and looked perfect.

I came home today and found one on its death bed. The fish is gasping for air and laying on its side. There are no visible marks on the fish and no aggressive tankmates that could have possibly damaged the fish anyway. My water is ideal (300 gallons, 6.8 ph, 80 degrees, 80ppm hardness out of the tap, regular 50% water changes, no ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate) for this fish. This tank is run by an aquacontroller, so I was able to verify that there have been no PH or temp spikes within the past couple days. Anyone have any idea what could have happened?

The only thing I can think of is that it has some type of disease or parasite that hit like a ton of bricks. Could the curious fish have caught a stinger from one of the rays? I'm still hoping the fish will pull through, but it certainly isn't looking good right now.

Here is a horrible shot of the fish in question. I'm craving a digital SLR with a fast shutter speed. This Kodak point and shoot is worthless.



Just for fun - Here is the right side of the tank. Most of the tankmates are in this shot.

loach43 said:

hmmmm, some fish just simply die of shock because they don't acclimate.

example: Buy 20 neons, take the best care possible when transporting them for only one hour with no temperature fluctuations, Float 'em in the tank, release them into ideal conditions. The next day, there will likely be atleast one dead neon.

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I guess, although it seems a bit off since everything seemed to be going fine and I certainly didn't expect it to die so quickly like a dainty little tetra. Moreso, this was a relatively expensive dither fish (at least for me) that won't be easy to replace.

HarpoGarza said:

I'm pretty ignorant about Rays, but could there have perhaps been a stinging incident whiie you weren't looking?

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That idea is floating around in the back of my head (bad pun not intended), but I've never heard of it happening. Maybe not beyond the realm of possibility, but highly unlikely.