Please HELP! Clownfish Amonia Poisoning?

[1gmctruckman]

I have had a 10g nano for in upwards of 2 years now, and I had a mated pair of Ocellaris Clownfish. To make a long story short I killed off some red worm travelers and not thinking put the rock right back in my tank causing my ammonia to spike. I did not realize this for a few days until my water got cloudy and the fish started acting funny. In a panic I did a 50% water change and dumped cold water in shocking both fish, my male didn't survive. Then for about two weeks, I did daily water changes trying to get the tank to bounce back. Once my ammonia started dropping I (too soon for sure) added a new juvenile Ocellaris clownfish because I did not want my female to be alone, he survived for almost a month until yesterday, the week following he had been laying in the sand and not eating. When I took his dead body out of the tank I inspected him, and he had red streaks on his gills and mouth. Mind you, for the last two weeks, my tank parameters have returned to perfect. My ph is a 7.8-8.0, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate ~5 ppm, Salinity ~1.023

 

So I quickly added replacement fish thinking he was just sick from the get go. Now my original female is starting to act the same way, laying in the sand, gasping for air. I don't see any red streaks on her, but I do see that under her mouth she has a sunken in red area. My question is, does ammonia poisoning have a delayed response to kill fish like this? I have been checking daily and I haven't had any ammonia for weeks now. Is there anything I can do to save her? I am afraid she is next.

[1gmctruckman]

at 79 views I am surprised nobody could help, the fish died this morning

[mattyfelts]

how could anyone help.... you caused a cycle and kept adding fish that added ammonia... (your tests may be wrong or what not) or maybe your nitrates sky rocketed. you should'nt have added more fish if you had unintentially caused a cycle especially. Either way the bioload of 2 clowns in a 10 is insane, the smallest tank clowns are recommended for are 30 gallons, or occasionally 20.

[Rememberme]

Cause might be due to the first fish having a parasite/ disease or something. Clownfish might have went to shock due to constant water changes stressing it out and making it more susceptible to diseases. Best thing you could've done in that situation is given it an iodine dip.

 

I don't think ammonia has that long of a response.

[happyhour99]

Did you use a water conditioner? I remember from somewhere that red/inflamed gills were a sign that there was either chlorine or chloroamonia present.

Or could have been early ich. A lot of diseases attack the gills first, then coupled with a new tank and water changes could easily been too much for the fish to handle.

[ajmckay]

Hmmm... hate to say it but your timeline doesn't make any sense... By killing off red worm travellers what do you mean? Did you take the rock out and dry it out or chemically treat it or something?

 

Ammonia typically does not have a delayed response in affecting fish. Light colored streaks in the gills can be caused by ammonia poisoning and typically they do gasp for air, and die within a short time. Honestly if you had any ammonia in the tank that wasn't able to be processed by the biofilter the juvenile clown you added probably would have died within hours or days.

 

As for the current conditions of the tank, I suspect something else is going on, but I can't tell enough from what you've written so far to tell. My recommendation is to let the tank chill a bit, and make sure everything is okay before adding more livestock.

 

Also don't be too surprised that you don't get a lot of responses since you only just joined, I don't know how many times I've spent 30 minutes to an hour replying to similar emergencies only to find that the person never comes back to read what I spent the time writing... Or comes back and randomly decides to do some crazy off the wall shit.

[1gmctruckman]

" Either way the bioload of 2 clowns in a 10 is insane"

 

I have had this tank with zero issues for over two years. The pair of clowns were vey happy and were even spawning regularly. I always kept up with the tank and did 20% water changes every 2 weeks never with any issues. I run a mechanical filter media with carbon, and a bag of purigen in the filter.

 

I only use "Real ocean water" in the tank, and when I add water to make up for evaporation, I use distilled water.

 

"By killing off red worm travellers what do you mean? Did you take the rock out and dry it out or chemically treat it or something?"

 

Originally I fresh water dipped the rock for about 5 minutes, which killed the red worms.

 

The strange thing is my peppermint shrimp and blue legged hermits all survived with no issues.

 

Can you further explain iodine dipping?

[DurocShark]

By fresh water, did you mean tap water? If so, the rock could have held quite a bit of chlorine after you put it back. In a 10g tank, that can have a serious effect.

 

Probably should have identified the problem before replacing livestock.

 

How's the tank doing now?

[ajmckay]

Chlorine poisoning is a definite possibility - though it tends to dissipate after a few days. Break this down.

 

1) Original male dies - I think this was most likely due to the shock of the cold water worsened by potential ammonia/chlorine poisoning. Did you ever identify what the red worms were? How did you know they were harmful? Typically it's not a good idea to give entire rocks a FW dip because there could be all kinds of things hiding in the rock that could die.

 

2) 2 Weeks after original make dies added a juvenile, which lived for about a month, with noticeable signs of degradation at 3 weeks. Did you notice any odd behavior by any other fish? Was the female aggressive toward the juvenile? Any other symptoms that you can recall?

 

3) 2 days after the juvenile dies and added a new clownfish.

 

4) Around the same time as the events in #3 original female starts showing signs of degradation and dies 2 days later.

 

Does this sound about right? To me this doesn't sound like ammonia. Ammonia kills quickly and it doesn't appear out of nowhere. It's completely possible to get a spike in ammonia after FW dipping your rocks - and though I've never tested it I would suppose that the effects could last for up to a few weeks - which would result in a build up of ammonia. Still, the juvenile you added survived 3 weeks before showing signs of distress, so ammonia probably didn't kill it. I would suspect some sort of disease/parasite, aggression from the other clown, or something horribly wrong with your maintenance routine (like forgetting water conditioner or using cold water) for the death of the juvenile clown.

 

As for your original Female clown, I would also suppose a disease/parasite, or something with the maintenance or possibly some water quality issue like temp or pH swings or even not enough oxygen in the water (do you keep the tank covered with a lid?). But you would need to know the symptoms better to really say for sure.

 

So is the last fish you added when the juvenile clown died still alive? If so I would take that as a good sign, though be very weary of adding a second clown. Note that they do not need to be in pairs - they don't need an anemone either. Under certain circumstances they can be amicable toward each other, but most of the time they remain territorial and one is aggressive to the point of killing off the other one. The best chances for success seem to be with 2 smaller but similar sized individuals, at the same time, and in an adequately sized tank.

 

If the last clown you added died already then you need to stop adding fish and figure out what's going on first. We can help, but you need to post more information like specific symptoms.

 

Good luck.

[1gmctruckman]

Yes, I did dip the rock in tap water, never thought of it holding water as I shook it off as best as I could

 

The tank has been great for over a month minus getting a already sick fish from petco, Now I am waiting it out to make sure nothing else gets sick before restocking. All test read good, the Nitrates are about 5ppm but I am due for a water change today. PH is 7.8~8.0, ammonia and nitrites 0, salinity ~1.023

 

The original male died from temperature shock, I know that

 

I am pretty sure they red worms are Bristol worms. I know they are not usually harmful to a tank, but I just had way way too many of them, and it made the tank look very gross during feeding time because they would all come out like snakes all over the tank.

 

The female was only initially aggressive toward the new fish, she chased him all over the tank for about a day and then they got along

 

I do keep the tank covered with a lid, The filter drops the water into the tank and causes some air bubbles, and I also have a power head creating current. I don't think oxygen was a issue. When the female started showing signs of gasping for air, I also added a air stone to bring even more air into the tank.

 

I try to keep the clowns in a pair because as I am seeing with just one clown he seems to get board, where as when I had the two clowns they always played with each other, and as I said, they even actively and regularly were mating.

 

The single clown I have now is just acting board, he is actively eating, something that the other fish did not do when I knew they were getting sick.

[ajmckay]

Yes, I did dip the rock in tap water, never thought of it holding water as I shook it off as best as I could

 

The tank has been great for over a month minus getting a already sick fish from petco, Now I am waiting it out to make sure nothing else gets sick before restocking. All test read good, the Nitrates are about 5ppm but I am due for a water change today. PH is 7.8~8.0, ammonia and nitrites 0, salinity ~1.023

 

The original male died from temperature shock, I know that

 

I am pretty sure they red worms are Bristol worms. I know they are not usually harmful to a tank, but I just had way way too many of them, and it made the tank look very gross during feeding time because they would all come out like snakes all over the tank.

 

The female was only initially aggressive toward the new fish, she chased him all over the tank for about a day and then they got along

 

I do keep the tank covered with a lid, The filter drops the water into the tank and causes some air bubbles, and I also have a power head creating current. I don't think oxygen was a issue. When the female started showing signs of gasping for air, I also added a air stone to bring even more air into the tank.

 

I try to keep the clowns in a pair because as I am seeing with just one clown he seems to get board, where as when I had the two clowns they always played with each other, and as I said, they even actively and regularly were mating.

 

The single clown I have now is just acting board, he is actively eating, something that the other fish did not do when I knew they were getting sick.

 

Glad things have stabilized. I think you should hang around here more. While it's nice to receive comments to posts it's also nice to provide commentary on things.

 

Anyways, let me explain what likely happened when you dipped the rock. 1st, dipping the rock likely killed off most of the bacteria on the rock that was certainly part of your biological filtration. 2nd, some of the life on the rock died and remained stuck inside. So over time their bodies decomposed, adding waste to the water. The result is it probably did take several weeks before things finished decomposing and the rock was repopulated with bacteria. Fortunately you had the HOB filter running so that probably provided just enough filtration to avoid things getting really nasty.

 

I would probably consider running the tank without a lid or possibly with a 2/3 lid or something where it's not fully covered. Gas exchange is pretty important and I think it gets underestimated a lot how much we really need in our tanks. Realize that by gas exchange I don't mean simply some air bubbles from the filter, there's a lot more to it than that. While gas exchange may not have been a serious problem for you since you've had the lid for a while (I assume), once other issues are compounded (like the sudden shortfall in the biofilter) it could have contributed to additional stress on the inhabitants.

 

Finally, I would seriously consider your stocking for the tank. I'm not saying that you absolutely can't have 2 clownfish in a 10g, but it is pushing it seriously... The main issue IME is territoriality. You really are taking a gamble that they will "get along". And territorial behavior isn't just about one fish showing aggression to the other, it's effects are more in the form of general stress, and can also include preventing the other fish from getting enough food. So both of these things may not be as readily obvious as chasing another fish around the tank, but they are still signs that in-fact the fish aren't "getting along". To say that a fish seems to get board is called anthropomorphism - and for the most part a completely ridiculous statement. Fish are driven by instinct. That's not to say that they can't display some interesting behavior occasionally, but in reality a fish doesn't get bored like a person would. Maybe do a little more research on clownfish to make sure you're providing a suitable replacement fish for the original female that died, or maybe a different fish altogether would make things interesting also. Just a thought.

[1gmctruckman]

Thank you for the information ajmckay.

 

I figured it was the dead worms that spiked the ammonia, but I figured the temporary damage I would do by killing off the good bacteria on that rock would be easily replaced by the two other rocks as well as the sand bed. Is there really any safe way to get rid of a abundance of Bristol worms?

 

I never realized about the gas exchange, my lid is certainly not 100% sealed as it is in no way air tight, I just used it to try to slow water evaporation, never realized there was a gas exchange too that I could be potentially blocking. If I had to put a number to it, I would say it is 90% air tight, as there is openings for the filter, heater, power head etc.

 

Man, I also never realized that it was hard to get two clown fish to get along, I guess I was just lucky and by putting them in at the same time, originally made it work. The mated pair I had definitely showed now signs of aggression to each other, and they actually made sure that each other got food. The only aggression I faced was when I stuck my hand or anything else in the tank I would get bit by the female trying to protect the male. From the reading I did, I was under the impression that as long as you have only two clowns they will fight until they get along, and as they reach sexual maturity they fight to determine who will be the dominant female and who will be the male.

 

I have had a 50 gal freshwater with 2 discus for 6 years now, and a year ago I got a 20 gallon chichlid tank, so I started the 10g nano a little more then 2 years ago as a salt water learning experience, always read that if you can keep a Nano, you can keep a bigger tank, and that bigger tanks are generally easier, just much more expensive. When I get a larger house I have all intentions of getting something way bigger and getting more into the hobby.

 

The single clownfish is active very good currently, he is very lively, moving sand around, and playing in the current. I just really miss having my couple in love :-( and I guess I tried too quick to replace what I had with the mated pair

[1gmctruckman]

So I just wanted to check back and let you know what I eventually found. The second fish I added after temp shocking my male must of had clownfish disease (brooklynella) and passed it on to the female, because just when I thought everything was fine and added a new mate to the alone fish it happened again and I lost that original fish. It seemed they would take 2 weeks before showing any signs. Upon a multitude of research I treated just in the knick of time with a combo of paraban and fresh water dips. I purchased the formalin, but never needed to take that extreme route. I did about a week of treatment, then a week break, then about three days treatment (just as a follow up) and everything has been great since for over a month with no meds.

[ajmckay]

Thanks for the update - glad the current clown is doing well.