What Is on my Clown?

[StevieT]

I noticed this white "film" forming on her scales and fins today. She seems to be swimming OK but I hope this isn't ick. It has really taken off and is taking over her body quickly. My other guess is that it may be her slime coat or she is stressed. Do clowns "shead"? I have never had great success with a clown, don't ask me why, I seem to be able to keep everything else OK and now I feel I may lose another one.

It seems like I could whipe it off with my finger. I have seen lots of Ick on pond fish and this doesn't exactly fit the bill. Any ideas??? I believe there was a small spot of this when I bought her but since I never had a Maroon before I was hoping it wasn't any disease.

 

Regards.

 

 

Picture of the clown when I bought her:

 

 

 

Pictures of her Today:

 

 

I'll get more pictures in a min. my internet seems not to want to upload anything.

[newtoreef]

hmm not sure... seems like mucus of some sort its probably really badly stressed?

[FLcracker94]

Here!

 

Common Name: Slimy skin disease

Scientific Name: Brooklynella hostilis

Organism: ciliated protozoan

 

Signs: A grayish-white film will be noted on the skin of the fish, and is especially apparent on the eyes or darkly pigmented areas of the affected animal. Swollen gills and ulcerated areas may be noted in advanced cases. Such fish will generally tend to hang either at the waters surface or at the bottom of the tank. NOTE: This disease is highly contagious, and care should be taken that cross contamination does not occur.

 

Treatment: Generally, malachite green is your best bet for an effective treatment. The correct dose is 0.10 PPM malachite green for three treatments, one every other day. At this level, your fish should not experience malachite sensitivity. Of course, dosing at 0.10 PPM means doing more than adding one drop per gallon. To figure out the correct amount of liquid to add, you take the concentration of malachite green listed on the bottle (in percent), and convert it to milligrams per milliliters (percent= 1 gram/100 milliliters of water). Divide the milligrams per milliliters by the final concentration. This will give you the results in milliliters/liters. To convert to gallons, divide the number of milliliters by 3.8 . For example, we have a 10 gallon tank, want a final concentration of 0.10 PPM (or 0.10 mg/l. It's interchangeable for our purposes), and we are using a 0.75% malachite green solution. So...0.75% = 7.5 mg/milliliter. 7.5 mg/ml divided by 0.10 PPM (or mg/l) = 2 ml per 40 gallons. Since 2 milliliter is about 32 drops, we will need 1/4 of that, or 8 drops per 10 gallons of a 0.75% malachite green solution. Now for the kicker: most medications advise ONE DROP PER GALLON. This works out to 1.25 times the amount actually needed. No wonder some hobbyists lose fish when using malachite green: they have severely overdosed. You want to dose at least three times, once every other day for three treatments. Another treatment is to freshwater dip the fish for no more than five minutes every other day for three dips. While this may take care of some, if not all, of the parasites on the fish, you will still need to treat the whole system as per above. Copper has also shown some effectiveness against this disease. You will want to add enough citrated copper to bring the level up to 0.15 PPM (you can really go as high as 0.20 PPM, but no higher, please). I know many of you use heavily chelated ( or bonded) coppers, but I advise against their use. First off, in order for copper to be truly effective, it must be in its ionic state. Heavily chelated coppers, by definition, are not in that state, and so are less than useful. The fact that crabs and shrimp can live in systems treated with heavily chelated copper attests to its ineffectiveness in most cases (try that in a system treated with an ionic copper. The inverts do not live very long). Secondly, the level produced by some chelated coppers is far higher than is actually needed to control the disease organism (which should also tell you something. At as high a dose as some of these chelated coppers produce, the fish should be dead). This higher-than-needed dose is actually detrimental to the fish in the long run in several other ways: gill degeneration, liver shutdown, anemia, compromised immune system..the list goes on. There is absolutely NO need to subject the fish to levels far above what is needed to treat the condition. How do you know how much citrated copper is in your system? You'll need to get a good test kit in order to measure the level. Personally I advise the powdered reagent kits over the tablet kits, as they are far more accurate. In the beginning, you may find it difficult to maintain a 0.15 PPM level due to the calcareous material in the system. This is to be expected as the carbonate reacts with the copper, forming copper carbonate. At first, you will need to check the level twice a day, and add copper as needed to maintain the 0.15 PPM level. Once you get two consecutive readings of 0.15 PPM, you can consider that day one, and you can begin monitoring the level once a day, adding copper as needed. You will want to continue this regime for 14 days. During this treatment period, you will also want to feed the fish an antibacterial medicated food. While not essential, it does help the fish fight off bacterial problems since the copper treatment does tend to compromise the immune system to a degree. After 14 days, do a 50% water change (to bring the copper level down), and add a copper removing resin/polymer to further lessen the amount of copper in the system.

 

from petswarehouse.com

 

http://www.pets-warehouse.com/marinefishdisease.htm

(Thrid one down)

 

I wouldn't go with medication if possible, but try searching for other methods of getting rid of it.

[Scott Riemer]

I don't know if Cracker is right or not but either of those treatments need to be done in a Quarantine tank.

[FLcracker94]

If I were him I would search for better ways to cure it before trying medication. I would QT it too since it says it's contageous.

 

It's the closest thing I could find for this pic. hope it helps.

[FLcracker94]

Ok, I was at my LFS yesterday, and someone had the same problem. Slime on his clown. Well, theres no way to treat it. (sept with medication, and thats not a garentee)

 

so, you fish will probebly die unless the slime goes away. sorry man.

[StevieT]

I figured it wasn't a good situation so I QT the fish. It died Saturday or Sunday. I have the worst luck with clowns........ rrrr

[FLcracker94]

Go back and get another. Check it over carefully, and if it looks good, buy it. Q it and if it starts to get sick, trade it for something else (if your LFS allows you to trade, mine does)

 

also, check your tank params too.

 

-Will

[pattykat99]

1.)bio spira = crap in a bottle 2.) my liverock doesn't smell so my tank cycled wtf is that ? that is no indication what so ever. 3.) stfu 4.) gfy 5.) ran out of things to say

 

 

So Sorry to hear about your clown Stevie

[StevieT]

So Sorry to hear about your clown Stevie

 

 

Thank you. I really think I bought this one sick, it had a few white scales that I belive this slime was developing from. I am going to have a talk with the store I purchased it from. My water perms are perfect, everything else is fine in the tank, corals and other fish.

 

Now I need another clown. Maroon again or go with a black one???

[FLcracker94]

Maroons are awsome. They do get aggressive some times. I wanted to go with a maroon pair, but my mom and sis wanted "Nemo"

 

I would go with maroon again.

[StevieT]

Maroons are awsome. They do get aggressive some times. I wanted to go with a maroon pair, but my mom and sis wanted "Nemo"

 

I would go with maroon again.

 

 

I really like them too. I might look into a pair. I hate the "nemo" perc clowns. Everyone has those !!!

This thing had to be sick when I bought her, how else could I have killed it so fast!!!!

[allenspidey]

DO NOT buy another clown for a while. Brook stays in the water. So as soon as you put the healthy clown in you tank, he will get sick in a few days. I made the mistake over and over until I found this site and figured out what was killing my clowns. They look fine for days and then they suddenly take a turn for the worse. Just be patient. Also, buy a 5 gallon tank with a heater and filter. Get him in there for a couple of weeks before adding in to the main tank.

[StevieT]

Yeah, i'm with you. I do have a QT tank. My other fish are fine, they did not pick up the disease which is good.

 

Here are the other pics I wanted to upload:

 

 

 

[ballhog]

I know its tough, but you really need to keep fish out of the tank for at least 4 weeks. Otherwise any other clown you put in the tank may get it.

 

Two of my clowns got brook last year. I treated them with hypo salinity and didn't put any fish in the tank for 4 or 5 weeks. Both fish completely recovered and have never had any problems since. The key to brook is catching it in the beginning. Looking at the slime on your maroon, I don't think you could have to much, brook was to far along.

[StevieT]

Damn, i just bought 6 new clows yesterday. NA

 

It is a great idea to wait and I plan on doing so for at least a month. It actually feels better to know what it is called. It had to come from the LFS I bought her at, it happend WAY to fast. Thanks for the info.

 

Is this something that clowns are supsepital to? Is it becasue of their "skin" or lack of rough scales? My other pajama cardinal, blenny, and peperment never got touch by this disease.

[allenspidey]

I've heard it refered to as clown fish disease. I had the same problem. The clowns kept getting it but the others did not. They are more prone to getting it for some reason just like tangs and ick. Once I got it cleared up I did 2 things.

 

1. Never bought another fish from that store. They said that my tank was to blame for the original illness. And they had never heard of brook.

 

2. Never added another fish with out QT first. Saved me alot of stress in the long run.

 

Good luck.

[StevieT]

Thanks for the info. I trusted this store for a long time, even though they are WAY over priced and can't run their business for S#*t. This was my first and last fish purchase from them, what a wast of money and life. I miss my clown, for the short amount of time I had her, she was a nice piece to have in the tank.