- Joined
- Feb 11, 2008
- Messages
- 63
Today I noticed that one of my 6-week old baby bimacs appeared to have one of his arm tips in his mouth and close inspection shows he is missing the very tip of several arms. I am, needless to say, extremely worried by this, as the evidence points to autophagy (I am using the word literally to describe the symptom – I have no idea whether it is the disease agent described by Budellmann [1998]. I SERIOUSLY hope not). He has not been eating for the last few days, and has been mostly adopting the “legs curled up towards him” posture, so I thought he was on the way out anyway, but since I saw this behaviour I have, of course, quarantined him. The really bad news is that he has previously been in the closed system with 20+ siblings, and (worse) a new batch of 137 week-old bimacs. There is nothing else in his tank to have caused the damage (all the babies are contained individually, and only a few live mysids and brine shrimp are in there with him). It is definitely only the arm tips that are affected though, rather than loss of an entire arm at the base. Does this give me any hope that this is not the result of a contagious pathogen? Has anyone seen this type of behaviour in hatchlings? I am so worried…
Other info; the water quality parameters are near-perfect (Ammonia
Other info; the water quality parameters are near-perfect (Ammonia