Two ~16" Xingu, four 10"-16" Meta, and one unknown ~1' peacock bass in 4500 gal

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
The survivor feeds well now, first grab of a large fish piece in the new tank:

 
Unexpected loss of another tem, 26 inches, loss of muscle use, twitch inside, seems like paralysis but by what cause?
Could it be that the first one we lost during the rehoming in July 2025 suffered a similar death? Superficially the symptoms seem very similar. Paralysis.

 
Keep an eye on them when there eating… ive had more dominant/larger bass slam into/attack the stomach of others to make them spit their food so they can eat it. Had this happen specifically with 2 tems also. IMO it looks like a ruptured swim bladder.

Ive had this (ruptured swim bladder) happen once from other bass like i explained and another time during a transport netting the fish too tightly against the glass. IMO alot of bass go down during transport due to swim bladder issues from harsh netting or too shallow water in tubs.

Could have rammed a lid also… IME blunt force trauma is almost an instantaneous death tho. My cases were the same, living for a few days not being able to keep themselves up.
 
wednesday13 wednesday13 Thank you so much, Sensei. This is very helpful, interesting, unexpected, and disturbing. Why would a ruptured bladder cause a paralysis of the rear half? Is it the usual consequence or an occasional side effect of an attack?

All 4 of our tems seemed to be the same size.

The cover is plastic sheeting. It's soft. There are 2 hard cross braces over the top and the walls of course. Wouldn't a run in leave a bad bruise on the snout?

Interesting thought on the bass netting. Perhaps the tem we lost half a year ago when we moved 5 of them from 1800g to 4500g suffered some bladder damage, although we handled all of them quickly and the same way without any obvious drama or deviations. The differences in the transfer were minor. Which cannot be said for the 4 barra and 3 nile perch - some of these we struggled much more then with others because they ripped and got entangled in nets. I assume we lost the ones, 1 np and 1 barra, with which we struggled the most and the longest.
 
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