rileyrayne Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 I have had my two false perc clowns for about 2-3 months now (tank bred, juveniles) and this is the first problem I've had with them. Ever since I turned on the lights this morning, one of the clowns has been hiding in a cave in the back of the live rock (that's where they sleep) most of the day. She came out to feed and got pretty excited, but despite eating, she's been hiding. The other clown was its normal, active self, swimming all around the tank all day, occasionally going back to the hiding clown but then immediately going back out to the front of the tank. Now just a bit ago I noticed a white string coming from the underside of the active clown. I looked up Brooklynella and I'm wondering if this is an early sign of the disease. My clowns don't have any discoloration, spots, mucus or anything else other than one of them hiding and the other active one having a white string. NOTE: This afternoon I purchased 3 blue legged hermits and a haitian pink tip anemone which I added to the tank, but the one clown was hiding well before I even went to the store so I don't know if this could cause anything, just wanted to make you aware. Does this sound like Brooklynella, or am I worrying too much? Should I quarantine the clowns? Link to comment
rileyrayne Posted January 4, 2007 Author Share Posted January 4, 2007 Ok, the white string is gone. It disappeared probably about 15-20 minutes after I first saw it on my fish. I threw in a formula 1 pellet for the hiding clown, but she bit and released it, the other clown quickly ate it. So I got a very little bit of brine shrimp and put it in the tank, the hiding clown quickly swam out and ate every piece she could get to. Since then she has joined the other and is swimming around the tank more. I'm just scared that this is a symptom of something terrible and I want to catch it before it's too late (if it's anything at all). Is there anything other than Brooklynella that it could be? Link to comment
lgreen Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 Just play it by ear and see what happens. Don't do anything crazy yet. Let us know how things look in the morning. Link to comment
mandarin dragonet Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 thats also called anemone fish disease. just wait a sec, ill get my magazine this parasite is a minute ciliated protozaan and infests the gills of the fishs skin aswell. fish suffering from this disease will respire heavily, slough exessive slime and develop lesions. unfortunatley the host often succumbs 30 hours after this is noticed by the aquarist. the best cure contains formalin and malachite green. Link to comment
rileyrayne Posted January 4, 2007 Author Share Posted January 4, 2007 Just play it by ear and see what happens. Don't do anything crazy yet. Let us know how things look in the morning. Things were the same this morning, one was hiding, the other was swimming all over the place. I took the turkey baster and fed her a very tiny bit of brine behind her rock and she perked up a bit. She's starting to swim around with the other clown now, so that's good. Every time I get near the tank she goes back behind the rock (which is weird because usually every time I go near the tank they just go about their business and put on a show) so I'm checking up on them from a distance. Link to comment
FishHeaded Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 Hey, I've had my ocellaris clown for about 2 months now. I believe it went through Brooklynella, it had all the symptoms except for the mucus around the fish. He would stay in one spot; mostly behind the rocks, wouldn't eat, produced white stringy waste, and seemed very stressed. He was like this for two weeks. I did not qt him, all I did was maintain good water param and dip him in formula 3. After I dipped him once in formula 3 he seemed even more stressed. But after a couple of days he began swimming again and eating. Your best bet would be to leave him in the main tank and vary his diet. Monitor him incase if matters become worst. False percs are pretty hardy so hopefully he'll just fight it off if he does have that internal parasite. Good luck! Keep updating us! Link to comment
mandarin dragonet Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 if theres no coral in there, no lights could help? Link to comment
lgreen Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 thats also called anemone fish disease. just wait a sec, ill get my magazine same thing brooklynella = clownfish disease Link to comment
rileyrayne Posted January 4, 2007 Author Share Posted January 4, 2007 if theres no coral in there, no lights could help? I have some coral so can't do that Fish, I'm glad yours made it through! Thanks for the help everyone, I'll keep a close eye onher and keep you guys updated Link to comment
lgreen Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 Hey, I've had my ocellaris clown for about 2 months now. I believe it went through Brooklynella, it had all the symptoms except for the mucus around the fish. He would stay in one spot; mostly behind the rocks, wouldn't eat, produced white stringy waste, and seemed very stressed. He was like this for two weeks. I did not qt him, all I did was maintain good water param and dip him in formula 3. After I dipped him once in formula 3 he seemed even more stressed. But after a couple of days he began swimming again and eating. Your best bet would be to leave him in the main tank and vary his diet. Monitor him incase if matters become worst. False percs are pretty hardy so hopefully he'll just fight it off if he does have that internal parasite. Good luck! Keep updating us! Agreed. Just keep an eye on it. If it stops eating or the stringy-ness or a white film develops, let us know. Link to comment
norcal99 Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 I've noticed that white stringy poop can be attributed to white mysis shrimp. However, if the condition of your clown worsens and continues to have white poop, showing cotton ball-like white spots and has a harder time breathing, brooklynellosis is likely the culprit. Then start the formalin baths. Link to comment
rileyrayne Posted January 4, 2007 Author Share Posted January 4, 2007 I've noticed that white stringy poop can be attributed to white mysis shrimp. However, if the condition of your clown worsens and continues to have white poop, showing cotton ball-like white spots and has a harder time breathing, brooklynellosis is likely the culprit. Then start the formalin baths. You mean they can get the white strings if they eat mainly mysis? Because I normally feed them mysis and formula one pellets, which they quickly gobble up, and maybe feed them brine about once every 1 to 1 1/2 weeks, but since the one clown has been hiding, all it seems to eat is brine. It won't even eat the pellets. It might nibble on them but then spits them back out quickly and moves on. Link to comment
FishHeaded Posted January 5, 2007 Share Posted January 5, 2007 Yeah I forgot to mention, my clown had respiration problems; hard/excessive breathing. Also my clown didn't eat for like 2 weeks, now all he eats is brine, nothing but brine. I've tried to feed him mysis, flakes, plankton, pellets, etc, but he won't do it. I've research and found out that clowns can become addicted to brine and not eat anything but brine. Also not to mention the fact that brine isn't really nutrional for fish, that's why fish tend to love it so much. Link to comment
rileyrayne Posted January 5, 2007 Author Share Posted January 5, 2007 Alright it's day 3 of my little problem and I'm completely stumped... The "sick" clown is still hiding behind the rock, but came out for a bit during feeding time. It seemed to be eating pretty well, but I basically had to target feed behind it's rock because the few times it would start to come out to the front of the tank, it would go crazy and dart back behind the rock. By "crazy" I mean making insanely fast but short zig-zags, swimming in fast circles and then going straight behind the rock in it's little sleeping cave. I can see the cave from here and the clown looks completely fine in it. In fact, when I'm not right at the tank, I can see her start to come out every now and then to get a bit of loose food and she's more calm, but still occasionally flips out. The other clown is acting fine still. It seems to be hanging out near the cave about half the time, maybe checking up on its partner? The other half of the time it's swimming around the tank like normal, coming close to the tank glass when I'm near, and was very excited during feeding time as usual. Before I saw the fish flip out, I was thinking that if it's not an illness, it may be a dominence/submission thing, or I was wondering if maybe someone came in when I wasn't here (the tank is setup in my bedroom) and possibly spooked her really bad? Anyway, if anyone could shed some light on this whole "crazy swim" thing then that would help out. For the record, when I was watching her eat, I didn't see any single physical sign of any sort of illness - she looks completely normal. Link to comment
rileyrayne Posted January 6, 2007 Author Share Posted January 6, 2007 I checked on the clown before I turned off the lights tonight and it was closer to the front of the tank, but it was swimming almost directly on the sandbed and going in circles (not constant, it would swim in fast circles, pause for a couple of seconds then start circling again) and at some moments it was partially tilted or lopsided, but only a little bit. It looked almost disoriented. Please does anyone have any experience with this or know what could be wrong? Link to comment
Ryan_H Posted January 6, 2007 Share Posted January 6, 2007 if she's catchable, quarantine her for 2 weeks with the first week being dosed on clout and the second on hexamit. the clout will get rid of any internal or external parasites, including brooklynella, and the hexamit will heal any bacterial infections she may have or that may have been caused by parasites. i was thinking the female may have been exhibiting egg guarding behavior until you mentioned her rapidly swimming in circles. that doesn't sound very good at all. Link to comment
rileyrayne Posted January 6, 2007 Author Share Posted January 6, 2007 Thank you for the reply She's looking a bit better today but I'm going to go ahead and get some medication and quarantine her. Assuming that it IS a parasite, if I do a hefty water change or two would it rid my tank of them or is there something else that I would have to do? Link to comment
rileyrayne Posted January 7, 2007 Author Share Posted January 7, 2007 Unfortunately she passed before I could treat her. I went to turn the lights off for the night and noticed she was doing terrible. I don't even know if I can explain it. She would go from spazzing out and doing fast flips/twists across the tank, hitting everything in the way, to floating upside down then falling to the bottom and repeating it all over again. So I did an emergency freshwater dip, but it didn't help. After a while longer, she was getting worse to the point where it really seemed like the best thing to do was put her down, so I did. It's really discouraging because everything was going good up until 3 days ago when this all started and I still don't have a clue as to what happened to the fish. It didn't have any spots, didn't have any cuts/tears, no discoloration, wasn't breathing heavily or going to the surface for oxygen, nothing at all other than the swimming behavior. All my levels are good (Salifert test kit), 20% RO water changes every 7-10 days, salinity and temperature are always stable and consistant, I really don't know where I went wrong. My other clown hasn't shown any signs of being sick, he's been completely normal, but I'm quarantining him just to make sure. In my tank I also have the following: scooter blenny scarlet/blue-legged hermits astrea snails nassarius snails 3 different zoanthid colonies (1 large, 1 small and 1 with only a handful very tiny polyps) anthelia haitian pink-tip anemone small galaxea colony red mushroom Is there a chance that anything else in the tank could be effected by whatever it is that killed my clown? And if this was a parasite, what are some steps I can take to ensure that the tank is clean and safe? Thanks for the help so far, and the help to come Link to comment
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