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Old 05-13-2012, 05:32 AM
SmallFry SmallFry is offline
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Default Strange clownfish problem

On Friday night I noticed that my Tomato Clown was behaving oddly, seemed to stay at the top of the tank with his back out of the water, breathing heavily. Also seems to be blind and bumps into stuff. I could even touch him which is unheard of - usually he tries to take a chunk out of me.. Eyes are totally clear, no white spots discharges or fuzziness - looks like the picture of health apart from the odd behaviour. The other fish, a Kole tang and a Coral Beauty acquired a week ago are just fine as far as I can tell.

Saturday morning he seemed worse , sometimes on his side. At that point he still could swim normally if he decided to. Still breathing heavily and still not eating; I even put some Mysis right in front of him with a turkey baster but he wasn't interested which is out of character. I hauled the invertebrates out of the tank and moved them to the big tank downstairs. I then dosed the tank with Paraguard because without any real clues as to what is wrong it seemed worth a try.

Tonight he's much worse. He's just floating around on his side or upside down, occasionally wedging himself above a powerhead or in a rock. He's still not eating, nor has any signs of anything wrong other than the obvious floating around upside down. All other fish are still fine. I tried a 10 min freshwater dip as a last ditch effort since I don't have any better ideas and thought it might be something like a parasite in his gills causing the heavy breathing.

Has anyone experienced anything like this or know what it is? I know there's been a lot of upheaval in the tank due to the fact that I've been using it as a sort of quarantine for new fish coming in for the new 75 gallon. Most of the upheaval has been in rearranging rock work to try and control his aggression. I also imagine he found suddenly coming up against a Kole Tang that wouldn't be bullied quite stressful too.

I realise this is less than ideal practice, but I can only run two tanks, and due to aggression issues I have decided that the clown would be the last or one of the last into the tank. While this has it's risks it seemed better than the alternative..

Temp 26C
pH 7.8 (normal for that tank)
Nitrate 5ppm
Ammonia 0
S.G. 1.023

So in the time it's taken me to write this he's lost the struggle - I guess the question now is was it stress or something contagious or transmissible? Hopefully not the latter for the sake of the other two fish, whom are still OK. I suppose this shows the importance of quarantine - at least the other fish in the 75 are safe even if it is contagious..

Kind of bummed to loose my first ever saltwater fish even if he was a miserable piece of work...
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Old 05-13-2012, 01:06 PM
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Did you add anything new to the tank recently? a parasite can very well be on the gill to a high degree and kill the fish before it will reach the outise body and be visible.

It could also be a problem or an infection with the swim bladder, so that the effort to stay afloat and up side up was what was stressing the fish and making it breath faster or heavier?

If you did not add any new fish for a long time, that would exclude parasites and make it more likely to be a swim bladder problem.
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Old 05-13-2012, 01:55 PM
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The Kole and the Coral Beauty had only been in there a week so I wondered about the parasites in th gills myself, but I thought that there'd be at least some white spots. That is why I went for the Paraguard and the freshwater dip with no results. It may well just have been too late by then.

I also wondered about the swim bladder too once he started going to the top of the tank all the time. At that point though he didn't seem to have too much trouble swimming normally, he just seemed to want to be at the top. As things got worse it looked more and more like swim bladder and he was just to tired to fight it... The breathing seemed to stay roughly the same - I've seen him breathe faster, usually in a frenzied attack on my hand..

I think the fact that he was in there with multiple other different fish was the root of it whatever it was that got him. I had to rearrange the rock several times to try and control his aggression. In hindsight being as territorial as he was this and the new fish probably stressed him out quite a lot. I guess I just didn't apreciate that until this happened - he was like the fish version of the terminator..

Should I keep running the paraguard for the duration of the quarantine of the other two or would that be bad for them?

Rob.
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Old 05-13-2012, 04:01 PM
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That's weird that you posted this as my false perc has decided to do this since Friday night too! Mine is still alive but doesn't sound as bad as yours. I was thinking about putting him out his misery but just can't do it just in case he can pull through.
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Old 05-13-2012, 07:08 PM
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I would keep the paraguard. It does not even affect the biofilter. I always do a one month Paraguard with my new fish just to make sure they don't have any ick or other parasites.

Especially if you saw white spots there, I would keep using paraguard.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SmallFry View Post
The Kole and the Coral Beauty had only been in there a week so I wondered about the parasites in th gills myself, but I thought that there'd be at least some white spots. That is why I went for the Paraguard and the freshwater dip with no results. It may well just have been too late by then.

I also wondered about the swim bladder too once he started going to the top of the tank all the time. At that point though he didn't seem to have too much trouble swimming normally, he just seemed to want to be at the top. As things got worse it looked more and more like swim bladder and he was just to tired to fight it... The breathing seemed to stay roughly the same - I've seen him breathe faster, usually in a frenzied attack on my hand..

I think the fact that he was in there with multiple other different fish was the root of it whatever it was that got him. I had to rearrange the rock several times to try and control his aggression. In hindsight being as territorial as he was this and the new fish probably stressed him out quite a lot. I guess I just didn't apreciate that until this happened - he was like the fish version of the terminator..

Should I keep running the paraguard for the duration of the quarantine of the other two or would that be bad for them?

Rob.
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Old 05-14-2012, 01:46 AM
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He finally died so just like you I have no idea. I didn't change any thing or add any thing so I guess it's a mystery.
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Old 05-14-2012, 03:41 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AquaticFinatic View Post
He finally died so just like you I have no idea. I didn't change any thing or add any thing so I guess it's a mystery.
It beats me that's for sure, no spots or anything. It's gutting really that I couldn't find out what it was.
My wife is a veterinarian, though she points out she's not a fish expert, she reckons that it had the look of a brain tumor - in which case it was game over from the start.
I'll carry on with the paraguard for the rest anyway though just in case as I no longer have any inverts in there.
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