URGENT Clown fish possibly dying.

[Jordan14484]

Help! My snowflake ocellaris is breathing very rapidly and heavily at the bottom corner of the tank. I have had this fish for roughly two weeks and it has been acting very normal, but in the last two days he has taken a turn for the worse and is barely swimming and is not eating. I performed a water change today as part of my weekly maintenance schedule and I just tested my water a few minutes ago. My ammonia, nitrites, nitrates are all undetectable. The pH is 8.2-8.3. I can't seem to find any disease that fit the symptoms I am having. I don't think it is Brooklynellosis because he does not have excess slim being produced. Does anyone know what might be affecting my fish?

 

P.S. This is a 10g nano reef tank that I have had set up since Jully of this year it has cycled and has had time to mature. The Clownfish is my first fish. The only other inhabitants are the clean up crew wich consists of 10 dwarf cerith snails, 4 nerite snails, 3 nassarius snails, and three hermit crabs.

[ndrobey]

Any white or fuzzy spots? Any redness around the gills?

[seabass]

I'm not that good at fish diseases, so I'd probably just move it to a hospital tank and treat with something like ParaGuard (which treats parasitic, fungal, bacterial, and viral infections).

[charnelhouse]

How much of a water change? What's your salinity? Amm/Trites/Trates undetectable by what? Any temperature swing with the WC? Has it been eating?

[Jordan14484]

Sadly the fish passed away sometime early this morning. He did not show any of the symptoms that you were asking about ndrobey. I examined the fishes gills and I couldn't find anything abnormally wrong with them. I not entirely sure what might have killed him.

 

charnelhouse- I performed a 20% water change replacing it with freshly mixed and heated saltwater. I run my tank at 1.024-1.025 specific gravity. I use the API saltwater master test kit to check my ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates. All of these tests read a zero or very near zero due to the accuracy of the tests. I do not have a phosphate test right now(it's coming in the mail) but I can't see how I would have high phosphates, I don't feed that much to the tank since the clownfish was my only inhabitant. Also, the fish was eating and acting normal for the entire two weeks that I have had him except for yesterday when he took a turn for the worse.

 

My question now is what course of action should I take? I really want to keep this tank going. If it was a parasite of some form how should I go about removing it from the tank. When would it be safe to try another fish?

[mystersyster]

Sometimes in this hobby you'll lose fish for very unknown reasons. I have lost a few fish like this. Sometimes they are sick and act normal and slowly decline over the course of a few weeks. Don't let it discourage you.

[lkoechle]

Sorry about that. Sometimes it just happens. If you're worried about ich, you can leave the tank fishless for 2 months. Letting it die out and starve is really the only way to get rid of it from the display. It could have been some sort of internal parasite. Did it have any white stringy poo?

 

In the future, you could deworm all your fish before adding them. Particularly clownfish. Worms seem to like clown fish from what I've read.

[Jordan14484]

Come to think of it I did notice some white stringy poop coming off him. If it was an internal parasite would there be anything living in the water and if so how would I remove it/kill it?

[charnelhouse]

Come to think of it I did notice some white stringy poop coming off him. If it was an internal parasite would there be anything living in the water and if so how would I remove it/kill it?

 

Pretty much the longest gestation parasite you are going to run into from my reading is marine ich (Cryptocaryon irritans). The commonly agreed upon cycle for this disease is 6 weeks. If you want to be absolutely sure you have nothing in your tank leave it fallow (fishless) for 8 weeks. At least that is my understanding.

[Jordan14484]

 

Pretty much the longest gestation parasite you are going to run into from my reading is marine ich (Cryptocaryon irritans). The commonly agreed upon cycle for this disease is 6 weeks. If you want to be absolutely sure you have nothing in your tank leave it fallow (fishless) for 8 weeks. At least that is my understanding.

I don't think it was marine ich because he did not have anything attached to him. My understanding of ich is that it's an external parasite. Would there be any other causes for the symptoms that my fish had?

[charnelhouse]

I don't think it was marine ich because he did not have anything attached to him. My understanding of ich is that it's an external parasite. Would there be any other causes for the symptoms that my fish had?

 

Actually, ich resides in the gills primarily and only infects the skin when the infestation is excessive. The symptoms you described could be ich, but that doesn't mean it is. All I was saying is that if you want to be absolutely sure, leave your tank fishless for 8 weeks.

[seabass]

I don't think it was marine ich because he did not have anything attached to him. My understanding of ich is that it's an external parasite. Would there be any other causes for the symptoms that my fish had?

I don't think that Charnelhouse was suggesting that it had marine Ich. However, since Ich's lifespan tends to be longer than most parasites, he reasoned that if you keep your tank fallow for a couple of months, that should be long enough to starve off practically any unidentified parasite (including Ich). It's a good precaution to take, even though a month should be sufficient for an internal parasite.

 

edit: oh well, I guess he beat me to it.

[Hammerstone]

Sorry about your clown :-(