Aquarium hep

[shento]

Hey guys,
New to this hobby. I got fritz turbo start and followed directions— add bacteria then add livestock within 24 hours (2 clowns). I should have not added clownfish after researching.

Anyways, one of my clowns is breathing quite rapidly and has a small white mark on the top of his fin.

Chem:
Salinity 1.026
Alk 128
Ph 7.6
Phos .3
Ca 336
Mg 1464
Ammo 0.2
Nitrite .2
Nitrate 1


should I do water change? Add more bacteria? Advice appreciated, thanks.

 

[dedragon]

add bacteria then add livestock within 24 hours (2 clowns). I should have not added clownfish after researching.

way too quick to add fish. i would go out and try to get some live rock or biomedia from your local fish store (lfs). you can definitely add more bacteria as well.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Videos of your clownfish under white light will help a bunch with trying to help you.

What are you testing your water with?

 

[shento]

Agreed. The bottle on fritz said to add livestock within 24 hours and the fish store employee said 2 clowns would be sufficient.
Looking back it was not wise but looking to fix my mistakes now

way too quick to add fish. i would go out and try to get some live rock or biomedia from your local fish store (lfs). you can definitely add more bacteria as well.

 

[shento]

Videos of your clownfish under white light will help a bunch with trying to help you.

What are you testing your water with?

Will add some pics/ vids in a minute. Tested using aqua spin photometer

 

[BryanM]

If you have an airstone I'd add that in the meantime just in case its an oxygen issue.

 

[shento]

If you have an airstone I'd add that in the meantime just in case its an oxygen issue.

I just pointed my 2 return pump nozzles up so it’s breaking the surface & creating bubbles. I do have an air stone so I can add that too. Thanks!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Agreed. The bottle on fritz said to add livestock within 24 hours and the fish store employee said 2 clowns would be sufficient.
Looking back it was not wise but looking to fix my mistakes now

I have seen many new reefers get led astray because of LFS advice. Not saying yours is bad, but I would be cautious of what they tell you. Always feel free to post here if what they tell you doesn't sound correct!

 

[get-salty]

Hey guys,
New to this hobby. I got fritz turbo start and followed directions— add bacteria then add livestock within 24 hours (2 clowns). I should have not added clownfish after researching.

Anyways, one of my clowns is breathing quite rapidly and has a small white mark on the top of his fin.

Chem:
Salinity 1.026
Alk 128
Ph 7.6
Phos .3
Ca 336
Mg 1464
Ammo 0.2
Nitrite .2
Nitrate 1


should I do water change? Add more bacteria? Advice appreciated, thanks.

curious, what salt are you using with mg level of 1400+ ?

100% your water is not cycled.
Do a 25% wc and see if you can get the amm and nitrite out.
what test kit are you using?

 

[shento]

curious, what salt are you using with mg level of 1400+ ?

100% your water is not cycled.
Do a 25% wc and see if you can get the amm and nitrite out.
what test kit are you using?

I’m not sure what salt I used, just bought water from lfs so whatever they used lol. Test kit— the one that came the Aquaspin. I’ll do a 25% wc tonight and hope everything works out. Black clownfish isn’t doing too hot by the looks of it

 

[shento]

Videos of your clownfish under white light will help a bunch with trying to help you.

What are you testing your water with?

 

[Uncle99]

Can you do that with white only.

Kinda looks like a nip mark but just too blue.
If the tank was not cycled, both would be distressed. If so, will heal if there’s no further hits.

No need to change water, (but you can if you want) as water doesn’t hold much bacteria, it’s the hard surfaces where algae and bacteria lives.

Nips when first introduced is quite common.

Let them settle and keep an eye.

 

[W31Olds]

What size is your Tank? While not optimal, you will need to monitor the ammonia level in your Tank. If you just added your clowns, it should not be necessary to do a large WC yet. Years ago, aquarists (myself included) would get a Clownfish, Damselfish, etc. to cycle our Tanks since bottled Bacteria, live sand and Rock was not available. They are tough fish, so most people never had a problem doing this. It's not recommended now. It's in many ways the same thing as managing a QT Tank. What you really need to watch out for is disease. Sounds like they were not QT'd so some parasite could get a hold. If you're really concerned you could go back to your LFS and get a couple of pieces of Live Rock.

 

[Fish Fan]

Hold on

This is likely a disease issue, not ammonia.

Fritz TurboStart is known to act quickly enough that it is OK to add fish inside a day, however I don't personally recommended this. But many do so successfully. This is with the Fritz product only, not Dr. Tim's or Brightwell, etc.

Further, if correct your ammonia at 0.20 ppm is not dangerous. Here's RHF's take on ammonia toxicity, it's not nearly as bad as many people assume:

How toxic is ammonia, really?

In the context of trying to understand why so many people believe Seachem Prime was useful for them in an elevated ammonia situation, against the data in the link below about Prime potentially doing nothing to free ammonia in seawater, the question arises, why...

www.reef2reef.com

And as mentioned, Clownfish are very tolerant of ammonia in new tanks, that's how we cycled tanks before bottled bacteria was thing

 

[shento]

Hold on

This is likely a disease issue, not ammonia.

Fritz TurboStart is known to act quickly enough that it is OK to add fish inside a day, however I don't personally recommended this. But many do so successfully. This is with the Fritz product only, not Dr. Tim's or Brightwell, etc.

Further, if correct your ammonia at 0.20 ppm is not dangerous. Here's RHF's take on ammonia toxicity, it's not nearly as bad as many people assume:

How toxic is ammonia, really?

In the context of trying to understand why so many people believe Seachem Prime was useful for them in an elevated ammonia situation, against the data in the link below about Prime potentially doing nothing to free ammonia in seawater, the question arises, why...

www.reef2reef.com

And as mentioned, Clownfish are very tolerant of ammonia in new tanks, that's how we cycled tanks before bottled bacteria was thing

Turned out to be a disease like you said. I looked back in the tank and whatever it was spread along the fish, ended up dying. Hope it doesn’t happen to the orange clown but by the looks of it, it’s doing just fine. It is swimming quite erratically though but it has done this for a while. Seems to be as I’m doing this wrong.

Is anything necessary now? How will I know when the tank is fully cycled and ready for another clown?


EDIT: after turning pimps off other clown looks like it has a small white spot.

 

[Fish Fan]

Turned out to be a disease like you said. I looked back in the tank and whatever it was spread along the fish, ended up dying. Hope it doesn’t happen to the orange clown but by the looks of it, it’s doing just fine. It is swimming quite erratically though but it has done this for a while. Seems to be as I’m doing this wrong.

Is anything necessary now? How will I know when the tank is fully cycled and ready for another clown?

I'm sorry that the fish didn't make it

As far as your cycle and your ammonia, I think you're fine to add fish. I think you're probably using the API brand test kits, and their ammonia kit is well known for always reading ~0.20 ppm ammonia when the concentration is likely lower.

That said, the question is if this was a disease, it's now in your tank, even if the other Clown isn't showing signs of symptoms at the moment. We'd have to decide if the current Clown needs to be treated before it would be safe to add another Clown (which reality should be properly quarantined before adding to your tank).

Can you post some clear pics or even a short video of the remaining Clownfish and the erratic swimming? Please turn off all your blue lights, and use the brightest white lights you have to provide clarity. Ideally, if posting a video it's best to first upload it to YouTube, and then link it back here, that way all R2R members will be able to see the video. Then, @W31Olds or one of the other R2R fish medics can take a look for you.

 

[shento]

I'm sorry that the fish didn't make it

As far as your cycle and your ammonia, I think you're fine to add fish. I think you're probably using the API brand test kits, and their ammonia kit is well known for always reading ~0.20 ppm ammonia when the concentration is likely lower.

That said, the question is if this was a disease, it's now in your tank, even if the other Clown isn't showing signs of symptoms at the moment. We'd have to decide if the current Clown needs to be treated before it would be safe to add another Clown (which reality should be properly quarantined before adding to your tank).

Can you post some clear pics or even a short video of the remaining Clownfish and the erratic swimming? Please turn off all your blue lights, and use the brightest white lights you have to provide clarity. Ideally, if posting a video it's best to first upload it to YouTube, and then link it back here, that way all R2R members will be able to see the video. Then, @W31Olds or one of the other R2R fish medics can take a look for you.

Well my question answered itself. Both have passed… very much a shame and bummed the lfs said this was a good idea. Now that ich is in my system, what should my game plan be? And how did it get in there? Fish were like 3 days old in my tank. And I’m using these test kits below

Thanks for the help! Could’ve been handled much better by myself if I did more research but learned the hard & expensive way I guess lol

 

[ChrisfromBrick]

So, you need to either read up on fish diseases like Ich, velvet etc and always buy quarantined fish (TSM aquatics, Dr Reefs) or quarantine your own fish with Copper power and other meds in a small quarantine tank for over a month. You wont be happy if there is a parasite that will wipe out your entire tank because fish wasn't quarantined.

This place is a source for info, not a LFS. Their job is to make money off of you. They don't care if you succeed in the hobby. Well, there are outliers to that, but in general....

 

[Fish Fan]

Well my question answered itself. Both have passed… very much a shame and bummed the lfs said this was a good idea. Now that ich is in my system, what should my game plan be? And how did it get in there? Fish were like 3 days old in my tank. And I’m using these test kits below

Thanks for the help! Could’ve been handled much better by myself if I did more research but learned the hard & expensive way I guess lol

Sorry to hear about the other Clownfish, that's a rough way to start out in the hobby, but unfortunately all too common.

I'm not so sure if this is Ich, I think erratic swimming points more towards something like velvet, but it does sound like you have a fish disease organism in your tank, and the typical method that's often advised is to allow your tank to go "fallow" or "without fish" for an extended period of time. I believe Jay H. recommends as short as 45 days for Ich with an elevated tank temp (81F), but I think he advises a full 60 days for Velvet. You could do 60 days just to be safe. In that time any fish parasites will die off without a fish to complete their lifecycle.

Then going forward, and as mentioned above, you may really want to look into either purchasing pre-quarantined fish from a reputable vendor, or QT'ing your own fish before adding them to your display tank. Here's the correct R2R QT protocol that I like to follow:

Current Quarantine Protocol

2024 Quarantine Procedures Jay Hemdal David Scarborough Protozoans (Cryptocaryon/ich, Amyloodinium/velvet) and Metazoan trematodes/flukes are by far the most common parasites found on newly acquired fish. A carefully managed, proactive quarantine process can effectively eliminate these...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Idech]

Agreed. The bottle on fritz said to add livestock within 24 hours and the fish store employee said 2 clowns would be sufficient.
Looking back it was not wise but looking to fix my mistakes now

Now you know not to trust fish store employees. Always do your own research prior to setting foot in a LFS.