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Juvenile Clown Pair: Need Advice


dnoll

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This is a beginner question about two small clownfish that hopefully will survive to be my first fishes. Advice would be appreciated on whether I am an over-concerned new fish parent, or what steps if any I should take. 

 

I purchased two snowflake clowns Saturday and their swimming behavior is making me worried. They looked healthy in store, but pretty soon after I put them in my quarantine tank they are spending almost all their time at the bottom, fairly inactive. One will eat, the other has ignored both pellet and frozen food the three times I've fed them. 

 

Water is from my DT that is cycled after 7 weeks, parameters are 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 5 nitrate, salinity 1.024, temp 78. The clowns are in a 10 gallon QT tank with two air stones, a powerhead, heater, pvc elbow, and one piece of well established live rock.

 

Here are two videos that show examples of their behavior:

 

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Daniel 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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THey look ok from what I can tell. A bit stressed form being in a new tank, but other than that they look fine. It maybe that you have a little to much flow in the tank for them to swim in the open water. They are small and with the airstone, you probably dont need the powerhead. If you turn off the powerhead, I would crank up the bubbles in the airstone just to be safe. Are they eating, that is the biggest sign of stress and illness. If they are eating its a good sign that they are healthy and happy. I also like to black out 3 sides of my QT tanks with paint, I find fish adjust a bit better when they feel a bit more concealed/secluded. Vivid Aquariums has a really good video of QT fish on Youtube. I highly recommend it. It discusses setup, medications, and what to look for. 

 

I think fish respond much better to frozen food over pellets when in QT. If they arent eating PE Mysis, try some smaller frozen foods. I used to feed cyclopeez and prawn roe to picky fish and it always worked for me. Those foods are hard/impossible to find these days but there are frozen foods out there that are smaller than PE Mysis. 

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That's really helpful info. My biggest concern is the fact one hasn't eaten yet, so I will take your advice on frozen foods, reducing flow, and blacking out 3 sides.  

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It's day 8 and one clownfish still won't eat as far as I've observed. I have tried pellets, mysis shrimp, brine shrimp, cyclop-eeze, and even soaking food in garlic. I also blacked out two sides of their tank. The one not eating is very inactive and appears to breathe heavily:

 

 

Should I try moving them to my main tank to see if that induces a change in behavior? Any other suggestions?

 

Thanks

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That fish's fins are either rotting or were eaten off by something previously or by the other clown. Anyone know what to do about that?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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The combination of rapid breathing and no eating for a week aren't normal IME.  Especially if the other clownfish is acting normally, and your ammonia badge reads zero.  The unaffected clown isn't breathing so fast, is she?

 

Did you do any treatment to the fish when you got them?  If not, I would start with a fresh water dip.  It's an easy way to confirm the presence of flukes, and may provide temporary relief for other common parasites that infest the gills first (velvet, brook, and ich).  Do you have medications on hand in case it's more serious than flukes?

 

For any breathing problem I would also lower the tank temperature and salinity.  These will increase the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water.

 

I wouldn't add either clown to the DT under any circumstances, until you've got this sorted out.

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Thanks.

 

The second clown is acting normal, eating, active, not breathing fast. Ammonia has been below 0.2 on all tests over the week. 

 

I have not done any medications. I bought these fish from Reef Escape and they said they had already treated with copper, so I have only been observing. I have cupramine and prazipro on hand.

 

Will slowly lower salinity and temp as suggested. 

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You might contact Reef Escape and ask for their advice.  That's the advantage of an LFS, right?  Someone's there you can talk to and they know the details of their protocol best, so you know what things you can rule out.

 

Copper works well against ich and velvet, but not flukes.  RE may have already treated for flukes though; that would be good to know.

 

If you can't get a hold of RE, I would still go ahead with the fresh water dip.  The FW dip is a pretty safe treatment and diagnostic technique.  If flukes come off during the dip, you've got flukes.

 

Mari brought up a good point about the clown's tail.  If it's damaged, it may get infected.  I would add Furan-2 and Kanaplex to your medicine chest.  They're effective broad spectrum antibiotics.  Even if the clownfish tail doesn't get infected, they're good to have on hand for any future problems.

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Ammonia should be undetectable. Try doing a water change. After you feed, make sure and remove any uneaten food with a turkey baster. Consider adding an ammonia detoxifier (e.g. seachem prime) to make it easier on the fish. Ammonia will be converted into ammonium which is safer for the fish, but could show up on your test kit.

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Thanks.  I have used seachem prime and stability at the same time I've done small water changes. I also have removed uneaten food and testing regularly so I fell pretty confident ammonia is low if not 0. 

 

I just contacted RE who said again they feel its safe to add them over to my main tank (which makes me a bit uneasy). But they say they do a pretty extensive quarantine and treatment process for all fish. They also said that since its two males it is normal for one to be very docile and they have had other customers with similar experiences to what I describe and that it should resolve itself in the next week. They said it is very unlikely they could be harboring flukes or other parasites. 

 

 

Anyways, I appreciate the feedback. I'm still a bit unsure if I should take their advice and drop them in my display tank or not...

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You might contact Reef Escape and ask for their advice. That's the advantage of an LFS, right? Someone's there you can talk to and they know the details of their protocol best, so you know what things you can rule out.

 

Copper works well against ich and velvet, but not flukes. RE may have already treated for flukes though; that would be good to know.

 

If you can't get a hold of RE, I would still go ahead with the fresh water dip. The FW dip is a pretty safe treatment and diagnostic technique. If flukes come off during the dip, you've got flukes.

 

Mari brought up a good point about the clown's tail. If it's damaged, it may get infected. I would add Furan-2 and Kanaplex to your medicine chest. They're effective broad spectrum antibiotics. Even if the clownfish tail doesn't get infected, they're good to have on hand for any future problems.

One of the other side fins is also slightly damaged. Very hard to see.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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(edited)

Fin rot could be a sign of bacterial infection.

I talked to reefescape on their qt treatment and they do hyposalinity and later copper. Not sure if they do Prazipro.

 

I had similar experience with multiple fish I bought from different sources and they died with same symptoms.

Wasting away/not eating/heavy breathing and no visible signs of fluke/velvet or ich or redness/slime around gills.

 

It could still be some other internal parasites which may not be affected by prazipro or bacterial/viral infection. Prazipro treats mostly worms, fluke and others parasites which are wormy.

 

At this stage it may be too late to save the fish and you shouldn't put it in DT.

 

from now on, my regiment for QT will be to feed my fish with hex shield pellets along with prazipro and ich shield pellets when I do my CP treatment just to be extra sure all parasites are treated for.

 

It is a good idea to feed these pellets to fish once every few months or if you suspect if there is any parasite symptoms showing up.

By the time the fish starts showing Ich or other sickness symptoms its usually too late.

These pellets are safe in reef tank as long as your don't over feed the fish.

Edited by WishNewFish
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Thanks to all. It died today. Its pair still looks happy and healthy. I'm not sure I'll ever figure out the cause, but am going to wait a while before adding any other livestock.

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Also check this disease: 

 

 Uronema Marinum is a saltwater parasite that can prove fatal for marine fish. The parasites behind the disease are ciliated protozoa that live freely in marine environments. This disease will as most other diseases only infect already weakened fish and the best way to prevent this disease is therefore to keep a clean aquarium with healthy and well fed fish and avoid overcrowding. You should also make sure to keep new fish in a quarantine tank where you nurture them into good health before letting them into your general population. Uronema Marinum usually feeds on bacteria but will attack weak fish as well, eating at its internal organs and muscles. Uronema Marinum is often misdiagnosed as it shares symptoms with a number of other bacterial and parasitical diseases. It is however important to diagnose the disease correctly as it is fatal for many types of marine fish. The symptoms of Uronema Marinum includes rapid breathing, flashing and loss of color (the fish becomes pale) as well as weight loss and dehydration.

 
 
One less disease to keep track of  :mad:

http://fishmedsonline.com/uronema-marinum/

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  • 3 weeks later...

As I posted before, one of these two fish died and the other has lived on without any symptoms I described of the second (rapid breathing, lethargy, etc.)

 

I'm now posting again about the second remaining fish, with what is probably an unrelated issue. The fish is not showing any behavior symptoms (eating, very active) but two days ago I noticed a small growth on his right side under his pectoral fin. The growth is either white or transluscent (it's on top of a white part of his body), very small (<1mm), and an irregular shape. I have read a lot of threads about various illnesses (e.g. ich, dermatic cysts) and I am not experienced enough to know how to classify what I am seeing. I do not know if this is related, but he had become accustomed to sleeping against an algae encrusted rock on that side of his body. 

 

Any help ID-ing this issue and advising on a treatment protocol would be helpful. I have since moved him out of my main tank and into a separate QT tank. Out of an abundance of caution given my issues with my previous QT attempts, I am doing daily water changes of 20 percent on this tank. I have several medications on hand, but do not know what to use. In my closet are cupramine, prazipro, furan, kanaplex. I've seen some people say they have had success treating similar looking things with time and observation, hyposalinity, or various medications.

 

You can see the bump when he is swimming to the right of the screen:

 

Thanks once again in advance, the guidance of this community has been extremely helpful. 

 
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