Another sick clown?

TheLoneSeaMonkey

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2 weeks ago I bought 2 fish from my LFS and a couple days later one of them got lethargic and started breathing heavy and died. I started treating the second one with Prazipro at the suggestion of @Jay Hemdal because she was rubbing on rocks and he thought maybe it was gill flukes - she had stringy white poop too, and was not just brine or mysis shrimp - prazipro was on Sunday. I pulled off my protein skimmer cup but left it running and took out my charcoal and left the tank like that for 72 hours, and then did a 25% water change on Wednesday. I plan to do another water change tomorrow before my second dose.

My problem is that my second clownfish stopped eating when I added the Prazipro, which I know can be an appetite suppressant, but she hasn’t started eating again yet and it has been a week. I can occasionally get her to eat some freeze dried brine shrimp, but I have the food she was eating at the LFS (LRS reef frenzy nano) which she won’t eat and I tried frozen shrimp and she wouldn’t touch those either. She looks like she is getting thin to me and now looks like she is having breathing issues as well. I haven’t seen anything on her that would suggest any kind of infection, no fuzz or white dots or anything. Should I be treating with Prazipro tomorrow or is it time to try something different?

Water parameters:
Salinity 1.023
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrates 20
Alk 120
PH 7.8

I am attaching a picture to show how thin she is and linking to a video of the breathing. She has also had her lower fins clamped for about a week now, I don’t know if that means anything either.

Video:



1273CCBE-6865-4899-BCC1-CAD926669179.jpeg
 

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vetteguy53081

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2 weeks ago I bought 2 fish from my LFS and a couple days later one of them got lethargic and started breathing heavy and died. I started treating the second one with Prazipro at the suggestion of @Jay Hemdal because she was rubbing on rocks and he thought maybe it was gill flukes - she had stringy white poop too, and was not just brine or mysis shrimp - prazipro was on Sunday. I pulled off my protein skimmer cup but left it running and took out my charcoal and left the tank like that for 72 hours, and then did a 25% water change on Wednesday. I plan to do another water change tomorrow before my second dose.

My problem is that my second clownfish stopped eating when I added the Prazipro, which I know can be an appetite suppressant, but she hasn’t started eating again yet and it has been a week. I can occasionally get her to eat some freeze dried brine shrimp, but I have the food she was eating at the LFS (LRS reef frenzy nano) which she won’t eat and I tried frozen shrimp and she wouldn’t touch those either. She looks like she is getting thin to me and now looks like she is having breathing issues as well. I haven’t seen anything on her that would suggest any kind of infection, no fuzz or white dots or anything. Should I be treating with Prazipro tomorrow or is it time to try something different?

Water parameters:
Salinity 1.023
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrates 20
Alk 120
PH 7.8

I am attaching a picture to show how thin she is and linking to a video of the breathing. She has also had her lower fins clamped for about a week now, I don’t know if that means anything either.

Video:



1273CCBE-6865-4899-BCC1-CAD926669179.jpeg

This fish is quite thin and showing pinched head and stomache which may suggest internal issue. The color of fish very faded and may be early signs of brooklynella in which Prazi would not help
Med such as quick cure or ruby rally pro which takes a few days to quick in
 

Jay Hemdal

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Ugh, not a good scenario.

The rapid respiration rate indicates a gill infection. While gill flukes can be a main cause of that, since you ran prazi and it didn't help, you can rule that out. The differential diagnosis for that are three main things: poor water quality, bacterial disease or gill protozoans. That the fish has gotten so thin, I'm not opitmistic that you will have time to rule these issues out one at a time....and then, because there are rarer issues that show up that cannot be treated for; nematodes, coccidea and viral issues, I can't really offer a good course of action, sorry!.

Are there other fish in the tank that are o.k.? That helps rule out Velvet (Amyloodinium). If you have invertebrates that are all o.k., you can rule out water quality issues.

Jay
 
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TheLoneSeaMonkey

TheLoneSeaMonkey

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Ugh, not a good scenario.

The rapid respiration rate indicates a gill infection. While gill flukes can be a main cause of that, since you ran prazi and it didn't help, you can rule that out. The differential diagnosis for that are three main things: poor water quality, bacterial disease or gill protozoans. That the fish has gotten so thin, I'm not opitmistic that you will have time to rule these issues out one at a time....and then, because there are rarer issues that show up that cannot be treated for; nematodes, coccidea and viral issues, I can't really offer a good course of action, sorry!.

Are there other fish in the tank that are o.k.? That helps rule out Velvet (Amyloodinium). If you have invertebrates that are all o.k., you can rule out water quality issues.

Jay
There are a bunch of snails and a couple corals that are fine, but she is the only fish in the tank at the moment. Other than the thinness she does seem to be acting pretty normally. It’s basically only a 2 month old tank so I am not sure how I could have anything really weird in there at this point, everything I have had come from the same LFS. I just have no idea what to do at this point, I feel like the fish were supposed to be the easy part and it hasn’t been easy at all
 

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There are a bunch of snails and a couple corals that are fine, but she is the only fish in the tank at the moment. Other than the thinness she does seem to be acting pretty normally. It’s basically only a 2 month old tank so I am not sure how I could have anything really weird in there at this point, everything I have had come from the same LFS. I just have no idea what to do at this point, I feel like the fish were supposed to be the easy part and it hasn’t been easy at all
I started with 2 clowns also and had the same struggles. If your second doesn't make it you need to keep your tank fallow for 45 to 76 days and it would be wise to QT any fish after that or pay a service to QT them for you.
 
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TheLoneSeaMonkey

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I started with 2 clowns also and had the same struggles. If your second doesn't make it you need to keep your tank fallow for 45 to 76 days and it would be wise to QT any fish after that or pay a service to QT them for you.
Yeah I’ve definitely learned my lesson as far as QT goes, but I also expected it to be more observation than actively treating weird issues since the fish had been in the store for quite a while and had been treated with copper and for parasites. I’ve decided to only buy fish from Dr reef from here on out, this has been kind of terrible :( I went back to the LFS and was pleasantly surprised that they replaced the first fish for me, and he is now in QT, but I am figuring he is going to have to live in QT for way too long if the fish in my display tank dies and I have to wait 76 days to put him in
 

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Yeah I’ve definitely learned my lesson as far as QT goes, but I also expected it to be more observation than actively treating weird issues since the fish had been in the store for quite a while and had been treated with copper and for parasites. I’ve decided to only buy fish from Dr reef from here on out, this has been kind of terrible :( I went back to the LFS and was pleasantly surprised that they replaced the first fish for me, and he is now in QT, but I am figuring he is going to have to live in QT for way too long if the fish in my display tank dies and I have to wait 76 days to put him in
I also deferred to LFS services that QT fish thoroughly but even those can be suspect at times also. I won't name the vendor here but I picked up my QT fish from him and dead 2 days later. So you really need to do your research and go with an established LFS that has a strong record of QT success.
 
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TheLoneSeaMonkey

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Well, sadly this fish didn’t make it through the night even though she seemed fairly perky before bed :(

I guess my next question is, should I go fallow for 76 days or just put my inverts and coral into my QT tank and run bleach through the system for a few days and start over? I feel like getting new sand and rocks and cycling the whole thing again would be quicker than waiting for anything in there to die, plus it will get rid of any bad bacteria that might be hanging around. Thoughts?
 

vetteguy53081

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Clownfish are NOT brokklynella magnets and is more susceptible with wild caught and the thing to do is get healthy clowns and seek tank raised one first
 

Jay Hemdal

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Well, sadly this fish didn’t make it through the night even though she seemed fairly perky before bed :(

I guess my next question is, should I go fallow for 76 days or just put my inverts and coral into my QT tank and run bleach through the system for a few days and start over? I feel like getting new sand and rocks and cycling the whole thing again would be quicker than waiting for anything in there to die, plus it will get rid of any bad bacteria that might be hanging around. Thoughts?

You don't need to bleach the tank - just run it fishless for 60+ days. Going forward, you might consider quarantining new fish, or buying pre quarantined fish.

Jay
 

Lavey29

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Clownfish are NOT brokklynella magnets and is more susceptible with wild caught and the thing to do is get healthy clowns and seek tank raised one first
Uh yes they are as evidenced by the amount of posts on this site with sick clowns having brook. It's almost a daily post here. I don't know why it's so prevalent in them but it is commonly referred to as Clownfish Disease.
 

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Uh yes they are as evidenced by the amount of posts on this site with sick clowns having brook. It's almost a daily post here. I don't know why it's so prevalent in them but it is commonly referred to as Clownfish Disease.
Again, mainly with wild caught and it would be husbandry and not Evidence which would be displayed by data not posts. I bought 12 tank raised clowns 3+ years ago and still have them. Brrok also affects damsels, anthias and even dwarf angels

dropF.jpg
 

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Again, mainly with wild caught and it would be husbandry and not Evidence which would be displayed by data not posts. I bought 12 tank raised clowns 3+ years ago and still have them. Brrok also affects damsels, anthias and even dwarf angels

dropF.jpg
I bought 2 and they had brook and killed my tank. There is a reason they call it Clownfish Disease. I did not just make that up but I'm very glad for your success and wish no reefers had to struggle with losing their tank friends but you have to admit there is a lot of posts on here with Clownfish problems.

Also, you have had your share of fish disease too right? You posted about all your losses.
 
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TheLoneSeaMonkey

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You don't need to bleach the tank - just run it fishless for 60+ days. Going forward, you might consider quarantining new fish, or buying pre quarantined fish.

Jay
I am going to be buying fish from Dr. reef moving forward, I do have a QT (and one clown in there right now) I just think I was prepared to observe a fish for 30 days not to treat them for weird stuff that might come up, that’s my fault. We have had freshwater tanks for a while and never did any QT and never had any issues so I just figured it would be ok since they were the first fish in the tank.

Looking at the fish this morning, I am thinking this might be uronema as she has a vertical dark line down her side behind her fins, has had her fins clamped for a week and spent the last day at the top of the tank, I thought she was looking for food, but I am guessing now that it was air, and I have read that can just live on detritus indefinitely which is another reason I was considering bleaching the tank. Would that still be gotten rid of by leaving the tank fishless for 60 days?
 

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I am going to be buying fish from Dr. reef moving forward, I do have a QT (and one clown in there right now) I just think I was prepared to observe a fish for 30 days not to treat them for weird stuff that might come up, that’s my fault. We have had freshwater tanks for a while and never did any QT and never had any issues so I just figured it would be ok since they were the first fish in the tank.

Looking at the fish this morning, I am thinking this might be uronema as she has a vertical dark line down her side behind her fins, has had her fins clamped for a week and spent the last day at the top of the tank, I thought she was looking for food, but I am guessing now that it was air, and I have read that can just live on detritus indefinitely which is another reason I was considering bleaching the tank. Would that still be gotten rid of by leaving the tank fishless for 60 days?

Uronema is tough to diagnose without a microscope. Was the line just on one side of the fish? That is how it looks in chromis, but clownfish don't get this disease very often.

Uronema is ubiquitous, it is found in most established aquariums. Its normal activity is to feed on bacteria. For some unknown reason, in recently acquired fish, it becomes an inter-cellular parasite. There is no need to sterilize a tank for it, as it will likely come right back into the tank on some live rock, etc.

Jay
 
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TheLoneSeaMonkey

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It was just on one side and it didn’t look quite like the pictures I have seen, but there was definitely a dark stripe. I should learn how to do scrapings or whatever you do for diagnosing fish diseases, I am a microbiologist for human pathogenic bacteria and parasites, I should be able to figure out fish issues too!
 

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It was just on one side and it didn’t look quite like the pictures I have seen, but there was definitely a dark stripe. I should learn how to do scrapings or whatever you do for diagnosing fish diseases, I am a microbiologist for human pathogenic bacteria and parasites, I should be able to figure out fish issues too!
What you do is take a scrape of the lesion and look at it as a wet mount at about 100x. If you see oval ciliates scooting around, that’s Uronema.
Jay
 

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