nigripes rapid breathing, but appearing fully healthy

[Ron Popeil]

my female nigripes has been in and out of QT in the past few weeks all due to her curious habit of breathing rapidly. but yet, she eats. she swims. she behaves completely normal otherwise, except for this rapid breathing.

its similar to the breathing i would see in brooklynella or amyloodium.

however, one wouldnt expect such a healthy fish otherwise, would they? color on the fish looks great. swimming behavior is fine. eating is just as aggressive as it should be. i think i have even observed nest cleaning behavior with her smaller male.

but this breathing is now so rapid, the mouth doesnt appear to move at all.

when the fish was in QT with copper and maracyn, the breathing resumed to a normal healthy rate. but when entered back to the main tank, it would increase again from the initial stress of re entering the tank, but then would never subside.

could it be gill flukes? why arent any of my other fish affected? why isnt the other nigripes experiencing a similar phenomenon? ive decided just to let the fish continue with the breathing, and watch for improvement, and it seems to be improving, but, it also hasnt gotten worse. so im stumped.

[mrblue]

Sound quite unusual. I don't know if it will help, but when the Mcc's came down with fluke their breath rate was barely higher then normal, maybe this was because it's skin was more affected then it's gills, I don't know.

One thing that I have noticed with a few females once they have been added to a reef type tank usually with an anem or one central host is that they often stress themself out defending their new host. I suppose you probably would have noticed this, and the breath rate does sound a bit high for this.

Have you wormed these guys?

[schlecht13]

I have began to notice this "rapid breathing" phenomena among many of my clowns. It seems to come and go with no other symptoms present. It is usually the males that have this behavior. O2 levels are not a problem, fish are otherwise healthy for months on end however they appear somewhat emaciated even though they eat every day--This makes me think of some type of internal parasite or worm (like tapeworm) but I do not have alot of knowledge when it comes to internal disease. Any ideas?

[Ron Popeil]

this female nigripes has stopped the rapid breathing, and is now looking very normal. shes extremely shy. but the breathing was almost exactly what i would expect for advanced brooklynella, but without any other physical symptoms. the fish appears completely healthy now. very peculiar. sounds silly, but perhaps some sort of stress induced panic attack with hyperventilation?