Convulsing Royal Gramma
 

My Royal Gramma is upside down on the sand twitching and convulsing. It's like he's just been stung/stunned. He was fine and eating as recently as last night. Can't see any injuries on him and his colour still appears fine.

He's not dead - yet, but it doesn't look good. He's a big sucker for a gramma at almost 4" and I've had him for over 3 years. Haven't done anything out of the ordinary recently. Everybody else seems fine including the SPS except for the two little maximas who have been unhappy for a while now. I don't have any anemones or anything else that can sting.

It's a 6' (120 gallon) mixed reef w/a 6" hippo tang, 2 oc. clowns and diamond goby.

Any theories?

You dont have any loud music playing- he could be getting jiggy? If everything else seems fine in the tank and nothing has changed of late- perhaps its just his time to go- which is sad as i love those fish, but sounds like nothing is out of the ordinary- im as stumped as you are. Sorry to hear about your
fish :(

-try various tests that would be of importance, like the nitrites and nitrates and pH and maybe a w/c could be in order? other than that i'm sorry to hear that, they're amazing fish-

I've had a couple that got really freaked out for whatever reason (once I was pruning some algae, another time I'm not sure both were completely separate incidents years apart) and its almost like they have a heart attack. Full on convulsions then gills flare out and they just lay there and go into rigor and die (at least mine did). I think they're very skittish fish sometimes.:neutral:

-o man i just totally lost my desire for a royal gramma, i've heard of fish die of minor stress and had it happen, but dieing from the owners hand in the tank working on something, and them having panic attack and dieing? :neutral:

Well, as expected he's dead.

Great fish and although he'd always been a bit skittish like all grammas, he's been through a few tank moves and the addition/subtraction of numerous other residents no problem. Hard to imagine anything that would have been stressful enough to give him a heart attack today. Still very puzzling.

This makes the second goofy gramma death I've had: the previous gramma met its untimely end when the intake screen on a maxijet got fell off somehow and he went exploring in this new "cave" head first.

Sorry to hear about this, it's always frustrating when it happens for no apparentl reason :(