Scaling up our Animal Care – The Tubesnout Story
Mornings are generally peaceful at Feiro. When Tamara arrives, she has a routine of turning on lights and looking at the exhibits. Is the water flowing? How do the airstones look? Are all 9 Pacific Spiny Lumpsuckers accounted for? Which barnacle is the Grunt Sculpin hiding in? Many questions run through her head as she stops by each exhibit. The list of questions is constantly growing.
In January, the Eelgrass exhibit became home to some new fish in our care – Tubesnouts. Tubesnouts are a long fish that mostly darts through the water. They almost look like darts as well, with a long pointy snout and triangle shaped tail fin. The fins and tail are translucent, causing Tamara to do a double take when doing her morning rounds. A Tubesnout was missing its tail fins! Her initial thoughts were about which tankmate might have gotten a bit too nibbly. Maybe the Sailfin Sculpin, though they typically stay closer to the rocks and sand. Tubesnouts like the open water, darting around the eelgrass. The juvenile Rockfish became Tamara’s prime suspect. They mostly hide tucked away near the rocks or by the airstone, but they were the only fish that might have a mouth big enough to do that kind of tail fin damage. This meant Tamara needed to figure out if there was another exhibit they might be better suited for, not an easy task given their small size.
The young Rockfish were quickly cleared of their predatory crime when the following morning’s check revealed more missing tail fins on the other Tubesnouts, with no physical damage to the fish’s bodies. “This is not from a nibbler” was the immediate thought in Tamara’s head. She immediately took pictures with her phone and texted Dr. Bevins.
Dr. Bevins is a local veterinarian with aquatic animal care training from Oregon State. Bevins has been kind enough to donate her time and expertise allowing Feiro to take a huge leap in scaling up our animal care. Over the past year, Tamara and Dr. Bevins have been regularly meeting. Recent meetings involved medication options for the critters in our care. Medication can be a bit tricky when you utilize an open-flow system. The incoming water that flows through the exhibits is pumped directly from the harbor, then drains from the exhibits back to the harbor. Anything we add to our exhibit waters has the potential to drain to Port Angeles Harbor, and ultimately the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Up to this point, freshwater baths had been the only option Tamara felt safe using for health treatments, but this treatment has its limits. Plans had been made to create water baths (isolated tanks within the exhibits) that could hold medicated water if needed, along with lists of medications that would be helpful to have on hand. These plans turned out to be right on time.
Dr. Bevins was not able to rush to Feiro that day, but would adjust her schedule to come by the following day. That morning, Tamara found the first deceased Tubesnout and more missing tail fins. While waiting for Dr. Bevins’ arrival, Tamara began to take long looks at all the Tubesnouts. Something caught her attention: small black dots. She racked her brain trying to remember if Tubesnouts had dotted pigment as part of their body. It seemed ‘off’ to her. When Dr. Bevins arrived, Tamara mentioned the black spots. That seemed like a good place to start. The deceased Tubesnout was able to help us solve the mystery. Dr. Bevins carefully removed one of the black spots from its tail area. She crushed the black spot onto a microscope slide and took a closer look. Immediately, she recognized what she was looking at – bacteria. The Tubesnouts were diagnosed with Bacteria-caused Fin Rot.
A look at the tank log documenting day by day events at the aquarium caused puzzle pieces to fall into place. The timing made sense. The Tubesnouts had been recently collected as part of a co-collection trip with ‘Community Marine Centers of the Salish Sea’ partners, 2.5 hours away in Des Moines, WA. All the other fish collected during that trip have remained well, with all fins intact. However, each species of fish is different. For the Tubesnouts, the stress of the long drive likely compromised their immune system. The always-present bacteria was able to take advantage of this compromised state and decay the tail fins.
Now the hard part: getting rid of the Fin Rot. This was an aggressive form, based on how quickly the tails were disappearing. A quick plan was put in place. Each Tubesnout would be netted, sprayed with a disinfectant & antiseptic combo medicine directly on the tail area, then placed into a medicated bath for 30-45 minutes. The Tubesnout would be returned to the regular exhibit water following the bath, but still isolated. This treatment would be repeated weekly, giving the Tubesnouts a chance to de-stress from being netted.
We wish we could declare a huge victory and announce the miraculous recovery of all the Tubesnouts. However, the Fin Rot was very aggressive and too far along for most of the fish. We declare a small victory in including medication in our animal care skillset, and still having one Tubesnout you can come visit. Monitoring shows that the black spots are gone, fins are still intact, and its appetite is very healthy. Tamara can’t help but smile when she sees the Tubesnout dart for its adult brine shrimp meal – causing Destiny Child’s song, Survivor, to play in her head.
Tamara’s morning routine continues, taking time to look at each exhibit, with more questions going through her head now. Everyone have their fins? Any weird spots on their body? And the routine continues to be peaceful knowing we continue to Scale Up our Animal Care.
