My Poor Clown Fish

[Robbie2013]

Hello,

I am admittedly a bit of a newb.... to reefing and to fourms. I have a 6 month old 90gal reef tank. Things had been going great up until about a month ago. We originally had 3 clown fish, a diamond back goby, a coral beauty, some coral, and our cleanup crew.

About a month ago we introduced some tangs into our tank and they died like in two days. I was worried about this but we replaced the fish and the new tangs are doing very well..... we added a yellow and a regal. After we added our new tangs our one of our clown fish started to look lethargic and was basically sitting on a rock and had stopped eating.

Our LFS gave us some advice that the one may have been sad as the other two had paired up and he was on his own. We figured that we could make him happy again by getting 3 additional clownfish taking our total count to 6. We were careful to get all of them about the same size but smaller than our biggest one and smaller than the biggest one in the tank at the store. (thinking we did not want to get a second female).

Since then 4 of the clownfish have died leaving us with only 4 and they look like they are on deaths doorstep. My thoughts are we have introduced something into our tank with the first sick fish but I don’t know what and I don’t know what to do?

This is what I know:

• None of the fish in the tank including the clown fish show anything on their biddies. No spots, no pests, no parasites, none of the moldy looking stuff that you see on the internet.
• All other fish in the tank seem perfectly fine.
• Our water tests all come back good: ammonia = 0, nitrite = 0, nitrate =less than 2ppm, and I don’t have a phosphate test.
• The fish are basically lethargic. The sit on a rock or in a corner avoiding the current. They can swim when they need to if for example I try and clean something they can still put the gas down. They look like they are gasping for breath. They used to attack anything that came into the tank and if the lid was opend they were the first ones up to the top in case food was being added. Now they sit there even when food is added thy may eat it if it floats in front of them but they don’t go after it.

I am sorry to be long winded but I wanted to explain what I was experiencing in case someone out there who has been doing this longer than my 6 months knows what i am experiencing or has any idea what I should do?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Rob

[intarsiabox]

Sounds like low oxygen levels in the tank. Is the tank covered, using a skimmer?

[mike31154]

Lid? You have a lid on your tank? Tell us more. I tend to agree with intarsiabox in that your O2 may be low if the lid you're referring to is keeping things tight. There has to be a good gas/air exchange at the water surface and your lid may be hampering that process. The more fish/livestock you add, the more O2 is required.

Best to keep the clownfish numbers to 1 or 2 if they are paired. Others will eventually be taken out by the dominant pair in a closed system.

[rsisvixen]

Firstly if you don't have a skimmer or adequate water flow your oxygen lvls are probably too low.

Secondly while certain parasites do show up on the body of a fish like ich they can take up residence in the gills as well which will also cause breathing issues.

Lastly a dwarf angel is probably the last fish you add to a tank as they tend to be the most aggressive, and 2 tangs in a 90 gallon isn't really recommended.

[Robbie2013]

ok I do have a lid on the tak. I have a skimmer, a 1500gph return pump, and 4 800gph power heads. I am getting good surface circulation.

I am thinking you are correct about the parasites. can anyone lead me in the best direction for dealing with them? all of the treatments I have read about involve removing fish from the tank so you don't kill the invertebrates and coral. at this point I don't have a hospital tank..... for do I think I could ketch them without ripping down the full tank.

thanks for your help.

[rsisvixen]

Most medications are copper based, which would kill inverts, you do get some that are not copper based but the best is to run your main tank fallow and treat the fish elsewhere as most parasites have multiple life stages such as ich which has 4, and some stages are resistant to medication.

[Robbie2013]

So after 2 weeks of not seeing anything on my fish..... I posted this at my office and when I got home. My regal tang has spots oh it

I feel like now it is for sure a parasite and I just need to figure out a solution.

its a sad day