Sick clownfish

[peppermint22]

Help! I think my clowns are sick with white spot but I can't realy tell because I don't know how big the spots grow to. The stuff on my clowns are like very minute whitish specks. Sometimes, there's an even bigger spot which seems to go away within a few minutes.

[Jon-Paul]

If it goes away in like a few secs then it's prob just bubbles. BUT if the spots are about the size of grains of salt or smaller than it is prob Ich. You should prob post in the disease section.

[penguin87]

a cool way to help your clownfish would be to buy a cleaner shrimp (skunk or blood red). or you could just buy a medication for marine ich.

[onthefly]

Try dosing their food with garlic too!

[peppermint22]

Just HOW do I put garlic into their food? I feed them with flakes.

The spots are even smaller than salt grains(so is it ich after all?), and the shrimp is doin nothin' at all.

[seabass]

I know that Formula One pellets contain garlic. Your fish might not approach your shrimp unless it feels bad. You might also consider a freshwater dip to dislodge the parasites:

• Fill a bucket with at least a gallon of freshwater

• Match pH by adding sodium bicarbonate

• Match temperature

• Add a quart of saltwater

• Place the fish in the bucket for 3 to 10 minutes

 

A freshwater dip might disorient your fish for awhile, but it should adjust. 8)

[onthefly]

You can get Garlic Elixer from Kent (garlic juice in a bottle). Soak the flakes and solid food in it for a few mintues, then drop it in! I've heard of peeps mincing garlic up and putting it in as well, but I prefer the elixer.

[peppermint22]

thanks guys. I'll try the freshwater dip first. One more question: I just visited my LFS and I saw sooooooo many types of anti-fish disease solutions, but I really do not know which one to get 'cos I'm not even sure whether my clowns are suffering from ich or oodonium. How do u identify diseases?

[Caius]

Why don't you try the garlic first? Seriously, a freshwater dip will be VERY stressfull to your clown. If he does indeed have ich then you are going to be stressing him out some more. If he doesn't have ich then you're going to be stressing him out for nothing.

 

Try the garlic first and if things don't change in a couple of day sthen go for the dip.

 

As for the garlic, chop up a couple of cloves and put them in a net and float them. That's all you need to do. Oh, and feed your clown as much as possible. Lots of eating has shown to rid ich as well. Do a search either here or on wetwebmedia.com for more info.

 

Good luck with yoru clown.

[chvynva916]

I say more importantly figure out what is stressing your fish out in the first place. If you don't remove that the ich will come back anyway. Post some tank specs. If all tank parameters for your fish are good, it should recover on its own. Fish have immune systems too. My guess (without knowing anything else about your tank) is that something isn't conducive to your fish's health.

[onthefly]

I had a sick clown once and used Maracyn-2 (broad spectrum antibiotic with vitamins and crap!) in a 10ga hospital tank.......she was fine after the treatment.

[nanoist]

The dip is the worst thing you can do to the fish.. The stress alone will probably kill the poor thing. Have you checked your water lately? High ammonia, nitrite or nitrate will induce stress and lower the clown's ability to fight off disease. If the clown is sick, it may not eat, so the food supplement may not work. Check the water first... you'll probably end up doing a water change.

 

As for medication.... the meds can kill off the "good" bacteria in a tank, resulting in larger problems down the road. If possible, try to avoid using them, or at least, use them in reduced doses. Good luck.

[westkyracer]

If you are going to medicate make sure you have no inverts in the tank the medication will kill them. Quaranteen the fish in a hospital tank and then medicate. Don't kill your corals.

[peppermint22]

I just bought some fish medicine from my LFS. It's called Sera Cryptopur for treatment of Cryptocarion and other parasites in saltwater aquariums. There's also a label on it that says "Does not harm invertebrates". I have just added the recommended dosage into my aquarium and am waiting for a speedy recovery. Anyway, my clowns seem to look better than yesterday but the spots are still there. I have tested for NH3 but the test yielded negative results. Temperature range is between 24-28 degrees Celsius. What else should I test for?

[nanoist]

Look for nitrites and nitrates. You probably have a nitrate (NO3) problem, but to read nitrate accurately, you need to check nitrite first.

 

If it is a nitrate problem, in the future to avoid this problem make sure you change your water regularly, and most important: DONT OVERFEED YOUR TANK!!!

[zizmans]

First of all a FW dip is massive. You could do a hyposalinity treatment, which is around 1.012. But it's not like you can just plop them in, you have to get a hospital tank and bring SG down over a day, then after 2 days make it go back up over 3-4 days. NOT FW. Do you have inverts? Im sure there is a warning in your med. bottle. All you are feeding is flake?????? That is a poor diet. You need a varied diet if you want your clowns to do well. Do flake 1 day, mysid or mysis the next, then maybe Vitamin enriched brine ( I use selcon) NEVER plain brine, it has next to no nutritional value. Unless you breed your own and gut pack them. Then you need something with Veg, Clowns are omnivorous. I use Formula #2.

 

What size tank do you have?

What are your readings for Amonia, Ph, Nitrite, Nitrate?

How long have you had fish?

What is your SG (salt reading)?

What temp is tank at?

How long is photo-period?

[peppermint22]

I have a 5 gallon tank with 2 common clowns, live rock, soft coral and inverts. My aquarium is a little past 4 weeks old.

NH3: zero

NO2:??

NO3:??

pH:?? (Haven't bought all the stuff yet)

Temperature: 28C max. 24C min

SG~1.023

[seabass]

I agree that freshwater dips are not to be taken lightly and should be used as a last resort. However, without a hospital tank, they allow you to treat an individual fish for parasites and not affect the whole tank (if you do, make sure that you adjust the pH, temperature, and SG to prevent shock). Clowns that are caught in the wild sometimes die due to parasitic infections (another reason to buy tank raised).

 

I can see keeping maybe one clown in a 5-gallon, but not two. You need to buy test kits. I’m guessing that due to the bio-load, your Nitrates are probably high. If your fish are not a mated pair, I’d take one back to the store.

 

Flake only is a poor diet. I feed my False Perc Formula One frozen, Formula One and Formula Two pellets, and occasionally flake (Frozen Mysis Shrimp are also good). How big and how often do you do water changes? With a high bio-load, you need to change out more water.

 

Edit: I'm glad to hear that they are looking better.

[onthefly]

The garlic also stimulates their appetite......so I've read!!!

[peppermint22]

I got those clowns separately but they came from the same tank. After 4 weeks already, they seem to be doing just fine with VERY, VERY little aggression. (They are still quite small)

 

After 3 days of treatment, their condition seems to have improved and is still gradually improving day by day. The number of white spots are getting less and less, but I don't think that it's a good way to gauge their progress. Anyway, they are very lively, still. I do 10% water changes once a week. NH3 test shows zero ammonia. but I reckon there may be some nitrates/nitrites. I plan to buy the NO3/NO2 test kit sometime before Friday.

 

I have a question about feeding: what exactly are mysis shrimp and where can I find them? And what is this Formula One thingie?

[seabass]

Being that your clowns are small, your tank can probably handle the bio-load today, but those clowns should grow to 3 inches or more each. That's a lot for a 5-gallon tank. I would consider taking one back.

 

I have an office nano and primarily feed my clown Ocean Nutrition's Formula One frozen food. I get it from my LFS in thin sheets and break off very small pieces (I thaw them in a little tank water before feeding). However, for the weekends, I have an automatic feeder to feed both Formula One and Formula Two small pellets (I still break them up for my little clown).

 

On occasion, I’ll also feed him Prime Reef Flakes. Some people like to feed live foods, but I don’t feel that it’s necessary for clownfish. It’s always good to vary their diet and Mysis shrimp are also good.

 

You should be able to get these dry and frozen foods at your LFS, but if not, you can also purchase them online.

 

Edit - If you take one of your clowns back, I would be upfront with your dealer and let them know what type of medication you used. I think that it’s good to build a trusting relationship with your dealer.

[onthefly]

My question is: If you don't have a NO2 or NO3 test kit.....how do you know your tank has cycled? At 4wks, you could still have some NO2 hanging around and doing a w/c might delay the cycle.

 

As for feeding, Prime reef flakes (they absolutly love it) and some formula 2 or Mega Marine Angel formula (every now and again). Like Seabass and Zizs have said, live brine are WAY over rated.......totally useless!!!!!! Unless you feed them to the tank RIGHT after they hatch (still have their yoke sacs attached).

[peppermint22]

My aquarium was part of a promotion set by this company called Instant Reef which provided almost everything in the package from fish to cultured bio-rings. Of course, I had to get my own test-kits.

 

Apart from Wardley's Total Color Marine, I do occassionally feed them with Sera Granumix Vital. I'll be dropping by my LFS soon to get more stuff and I'll consider getting some frozen food too. Thanks guys for the enlightment on frozen fish food!

 

Do u think I'm overcrowding my tank? I've got 1 skunk cleaner shrimp, 2 clowns, 1 Trochus snail, 1 feather-duster, a couple of live rock, zooanthids and star polyps.

[jrlim]

how's your treatment coming along? I'm having the same problem too now... but the ich is growing on my Citron Goby instead. Only have a goby and peppermint shrimp in my tank right now.

 

also... if i decide to get a cleaner shrimp, should i take out the peppermint shrimp? my tank size is a 7 gallon.

[peppermint22]

The smaller of the two died but the big one is doing fine. I'm not too sure which helped in curing - the cleaner shrimp or Sera Cryptopur. I did manage to see the cleaner shrimp picking off those parasites from it at night.

 

Keep the peppermint shrimp in there. IMO two shrimp are fine in a 7 gallon, just provide enough food + caves/crevices for them.