Clown Not Doing Well

[A_Poythress]

Hey guys, I have a clown fish that is acting very sluggish. He is staying towards the bottom, quite swimming every couple of seconds and starts to turn to his side. About 5 - 10 minutes later he swims normally and then goes right back to acting weird again.

I’m running a 90G tank with a emerald trigger sump. I have not yet implemented carbon into the system. The tank cycled for close to 6 months before I purchased the clowns. The clowns went through a 28 day copper QT and then we’re in copper-less QT for 2 weeks and I saw zero issues. I then moved them to the display and they have been there for close to 1 month now.

I do plan on adding a dose of first defense today after I do a W/C, but is there something else I should do? Do you need more info?

 

[A_Poythress]

Ammonia levels at reading 0.02 constantly. Seneye monitors that for me daily.

 

[A_Poythress]

Ammonia levels at reading 0.02 constantly. Seneye monitors that for me daily.

Sorry. Typo. Ammonia reading is 0.002

 

[Big G]

How's its breathing? Rapid, labored? Any twitching?

Has the fish been de-wormed? General Cure or Prazi?

 

[A_Poythress]

How's its breathing? Rapid, labored? Any twitching?

Has the fish been de-wormed? General Cure or Prazi?

Breathing is very rapid. He is getting pale in color as well.
I did not follow up with Prazi. Do I need to remove them from display and treat with prazi?

 

[Dom]

Can you post some pictures of the little guy... maybe a video?

 

[A_Poythress]

Here is a video

 

[A_Poythress]

He seems to be slightly transparent. He goes from being at the bottom of the display like the video to swimming all around like everything is normal.

 

[Big G]

Breathing is very rapid. He is getting pale in color as well.
I did not follow up with Prazi. Do I need to remove them from display and treat with prazi?

You may be dealing with flukes as copper does not rid the fish of worms.

Usually the best plan is to give the fish a freshwater dip to check for flukes. Use a dark colored container as then the white-ish sesame seed sized fluke bodies will be easy to see in the bottom of the container.

But you need to decide if your fish can take the FW dip. It does stress the fish.

If it's flukes can treat in a QT with Prazipro + Metro or with General Cure as it contains both. With Prazi + Metro need to run a powerhead to oxygenate the water; with General Cure you don't have to run a powerhead but I do anyway as it helps the fish with the meds.

Freshwater Dip

Freshwater Dip What It Treats – Provides temporary relief for a wide range of diseases: 1) Marine Velvet Disease (Amyloodinium ocellatum) 2) Brooklynella hostilis 3) Uronema marinum 4) Flukes (Monogeneans) 5) Black Ich (Turbellarians) Can be used to confirm the presence of Flukes (see video...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[A_Poythress]

You may be dealing with flukes as copper does not rid the fish of worms.

Usually the best plan is to give the fish a freshwater dip to check for flukes. Use a dark colored container as then the white-ish sesame seed sized fluke bodies will be easy to see in the bottom of the container.

But you need to decide if your fish can take the FW dip. It does stress the fish.

If it's flukes can treat in a QT with Prazipro + Metro or with General Cure as it contains both. With Prazi + Metro need to run a powerhead to oxygenate the water; with General Cure you don't have to run a powerhead but I do anyway as it helps the fish with the meds.

Freshwater Dip

Freshwater Dip What It Treats – Provides temporary relief for a wide range of diseases: 1) Marine Velvet Disease (Amyloodinium ocellatum) 2) Brooklynella hostilis 3) Uronema marinum 4) Flukes (Monogeneans) 5) Black Ich (Turbellarians) Can be used to confirm the presence of Flukes (see video...

www.reef2reef.com

Thanks!

Would a safer course of action be to take him straight to QT and treat with prazi and bypass the freshwater dip? Just don’t want to kill the poor guy by checking before I get the chance to medicate.

 

[Big G]

Thanks!

Would a safer course of action be to take him straight to QT and treat with prazi and bypass the freshwater dip? Just don’t want to kill the poor guy by checking before I get the chance to medicate.

That's a great question. The advantage is that if you do the test you will know for sure if it is flukes causing the problem.

Most fish can handle the FW dip. It sometimes looks horrible for the first couple of minutes, but the fish usually calm down. And if the fish doesn't handle the dip, it probably wouldn't have made it anyway. But I have to mention this as all treatments come with risks.

And the FW dip will remove many of the flukes making the treatment later a bit easier on the fish. Plus it will immediately help the fish to breathe a bit easier.

Prazi by it self treats most worms but with Metro the others are covered too.

 

[A_Poythress]

That's a great question. The advantage is that if you do the test you will know for sure if it is flukes causing the problem.

Most fish can handle the FW dip. It sometimes looks horrible for the first couple of minutes, but the fish usually calm down. And if the fish doesn't handle the dip, it probably wouldn't have made it anyway. But I have to mention this as all treatments come with risks.

And the FW dip will remove many of the flukes making the treatment later a bit easier on the fish. Plus it will immediately help the fish to breathe a bit easier.

Prazi by it self treats most worms but with Metro the others are covered too.

Ok! I’ll go ahead and do a FW dip and get the QT prepped just in case. Thanks for your help. I’ll post an update after I do the dip.

 

[A_Poythress]

That's a great question. The advantage is that if you do the test you will know for sure if it is flukes causing the problem.

Most fish can handle the FW dip. It sometimes looks horrible for the first couple of minutes, but the fish usually calm down. And if the fish doesn't handle the dip, it probably wouldn't have made it anyway. But I have to mention this as all treatments come with risks.

And the FW dip will remove many of the flukes making the treatment later a bit easier on the fish. Plus it will immediately help the fish to breathe a bit easier.

Prazi by it self treats most worms but with Metro the others are covered too.

I went upstairs to prep the QT and a container for FW dip and when I walked back down to the display the little guy had already kicked the bucket. I proceeded to FW dip just to see if I saw the white specks and I did. Poor guy was smothered in them.

Since he had them i should probably FW dip my other clown to check right?

And what do I do about the main display? Am I stuck with worms forever? Or will a fish-less 70 day period eradicate them?

 

[Big G]

Oh, man. Sorry for your loss.
I'd check that the other clown has them too.

For the display tank you have a couple of choices.
1. Go fallow for 4 weeks to starve out the flukes.
2. Or treat the display tank with Prazipro. It is "reef safe" but it could kill feather dusters and any bristleworms that may be in the tank causing a die-off.

 

[A_Poythress]

Oh, man. Sorry for your loss.
I'd check that the other clown has them too.

For the display tank you have a couple of choices.
1. Go fallow for 4 weeks to starve out the flukes.
2. Or treat the display tank with Prazipro. It is "reef safe" but it could kill feather dusters and any bristleworms that may be in the tank causing a die-off.

Thanks! Only thing in the display is the clown and snails/hermits. So dosing prazipro straight to the DP should be fine?

 

[Big G]

Thanks! Only thing in the display is the clown and snails/hermits. So dosing prazipro straight to the DP should be fine?

Yep. If you have sand, stir it a bit to make sure of complete circulation.
Watch the clown. You may see some twitching when the Prazi gets to the flukes.