Clownfish barely eating. Video Diagnosis

[liamelias]

Posted about this a while ago. Posting again. My clown has barely been eating for about 2 weeks, 2-4 pellets on a good day. None sometimes. My other clown seems fine. She used to eat so much. I wonder if you guys notice any physical signs of anything ? I’m not sure what else to do.



They’ve been in a hospital tank after treating for ich 6 months ago. Nothing new introduced into the tank. I was almost moving them back to the DT soon, but worried this may stress them

 

[vetteguy53081]

Posted about this a while ago. Posting again. My clown has barely been eating for about 2 weeks, 2-4 pellets on a good day. None sometimes. My other clown seems fine. She used to eat so much. I wonder if you guys notice any physical signs of anything ? I’m not sure what else to do.



They’ve been in a hospital tank after treating for ich 6 months ago. Nothing new introduced into the tank. I was almost moving them back to the DT soon, but worried this may stress them

The erratic swimming and what looks like mucus around the facial and mouth area suggest the start of brooklynella clown disease. The most significant sign is the amount of slime on its body. The thick mucus on its body will be a second sign on the fish. This mucus generally starts at the facial area as well as gills and spreads across the body producing lesions as it progresses often confused with ich and can turn into secondary bacteria. Other symptoms will be lethargic behavior, refusing to eat and heavy breathing from the mucus.
Typical treatment is a formalin solution is mixed with in a separate container with either fresh or saltwater. Start with a quick dip in the formalin at a higher concentration then performing treatment in a prolonged bath of formalin base at a lower concentration in a quarantine tank. The longer the fish are exposed to the formalin treatment the more effective it will be at eliminating this issue.
If a formalin solution is not available for immediate use, temporary relief can be achieved by giving the fish a FW bath or dip in water same temperature as display tank. Even though this treatment will not cure the disease, it can help to remove some of the parasites, as well as reduce the amount of mucus in the gills to assist with respiration problems.
Treatment is best done in a QT tank using either quick cure (more effective but now harder to find) or Ruby Rally Pro. Ruby takes a little longer and initial treatment generally takes 2-3 days to really start going to work.
With the advanced stage of this- I recommend immediate quarantine of all inhabitants and leaving display without fish for 4-6 weeks.
A quarantine system if you dont have one can be as easy as a second hand tank from a thrift store or as simple as a starter tank kit from walmart which has most of the essentials

 

[liamelias]

The erratic swimming and what looks like mucus around the facial and mouth area suggest the start of brooklynella clown disease. The most significant sign is the amount of slime on its body. The thick mucus on its body will be a second sign on the fish. This mucus generally starts at the facial area as well as gills and spreads across the body producing lesions as it progresses often confused with ich and can turn into secondary bacteria. Other symptoms will be lethargic behavior, refusing to eat and heavy breathing from the mucus.
Typical treatment is a formalin solution is mixed with in a separate container with either fresh or saltwater. Start with a quick dip in the formalin at a higher concentration then performing treatment in a prolonged bath of formalin base at a lower concentration in a quarantine tank. The longer the fish are exposed to the formalin treatment the more effective it will be at eliminating this issue.
If a formalin solution is not available for immediate use, temporary relief can be achieved by giving the fish a FW bath or dip in water same temperature as display tank. Even though this treatment will not cure the disease, it can help to remove some of the parasites, as well as reduce the amount of mucus in the gills to assist with respiration problems.
Treatment is best done in a QT tank using either quick cure (more effective but now harder to find) or Ruby Rally Pro. Ruby takes a little longer and initial treatment generally takes 2-3 days to really start going to work.
With the advanced stage of this- I recommend immediate quarantine of all inhabitants and leaving display without fish for 4-6 weeks.
A quarantine system if you dont have one can be as easy as a second hand tank from a thrift store or as simple as a starter tank kit from walmart which has most of the essentials

Thank you! I definitely was afraid of this. I’m going to look into the treatment and hopefully start tomorrow. Would this be able to cure it? Could it come back?

 

[liamelias]

The erratic swimming and what looks like mucus around the facial and mouth area suggest the start of brooklynella clown disease. The most significant sign is the amount of slime on its body. The thick mucus on its body will be a second sign on the fish. This mucus generally starts at the facial area as well as gills and spreads across the body producing lesions as it progresses often confused with ich and can turn into secondary bacteria. Other symptoms will be lethargic behavior, refusing to eat and heavy breathing from the mucus.
Typical treatment is a formalin solution is mixed with in a separate container with either fresh or saltwater. Start with a quick dip in the formalin at a higher concentration then performing treatment in a prolonged bath of formalin base at a lower concentration in a quarantine tank. The longer the fish are exposed to the formalin treatment the more effective it will be at eliminating this issue.
If a formalin solution is not available for immediate use, temporary relief can be achieved by giving the fish a FW bath or dip in water same temperature as display tank. Even though this treatment will not cure the disease, it can help to remove some of the parasites, as well as reduce the amount of mucus in the gills to assist with respiration problems.
Treatment is best done in a QT tank using either quick cure (more effective but now harder to find) or Ruby Rally Pro. Ruby takes a little longer and initial treatment generally takes 2-3 days to really start going to work.
With the advanced stage of this- I recommend immediate quarantine of all inhabitants and leaving display without fish for 4-6 weeks.
A quarantine system if you dont have one can be as easy as a second hand tank from a thrift store or as simple as a starter tank kit from walmart which has most of the essentials

One last question. My fish are already in a QT . This is where I took the video from. Your method suggests doing the bath then placing them in a new sterile QT. I don’t have another QT. Is it ok to put them back in the same QT ?

 

[JayM]

One last question. My fish are already in a QT . This is where I took the video from. Your method suggests doing the bath then placing them in a new sterile QT. I don’t have another QT. Is it ok to put them back in the same QT ?

As long as you’re medicating the QT as suggested, it should be safe to remove them for a dip/bath and then put them back in QT. The medication should take care of anything that may already be there.

A #fishmedic will most likely pop in soon and correct me if I’m wrong.

Good luck.

 

[vetteguy53081]

One last question. My fish are already in a QT . This is where I took the video from. Your method suggests doing the bath then placing them in a new sterile QT. I don’t have another QT. Is it ok to put them back in the same QT ?

Sterile is when initially introduced. A bath and then into coppersafe treated tank is acceptable

 

[liamelias]

Sterile is when initially introduced. A bath and then into coppersafe treated tank is acceptable

Got it. Any need to dose metronidazole as well?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Got it. Any need to dose metronidazole as well?

Skip metro which also would need to be dosed precisely at.5 gm in weight

 

[liamelias]

Skip metro which also would need to be dosed precisely at.5 gm in weight

Thank you. So to recap

Formalin bath for 45 mins
Back to QT and start dosing coppersafe (ive used coppersafe so guessing slowly dosing for 3 days until reaching 2ppm)

 

[vetteguy53081]

Thank you. So to recap

Formalin bath for 45 mins
Back to QT and start dosing coppersafe (ive used coppersafe so guessing slowly dosing for 3 days until reaching 2ppm)

Do not slowly ramp - get to level as soon as possible as ramping up allows the disease to gain resistance making it harder to treat given disease.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Just a thought: Brooklynella is pretty rare in fish that have been in a tank that long. It's also been showing symptoms for two weeks, but the other clownfish is still fine.

Jay

 

[liamelias]

Just a thought: Brooklynella is pretty rare in fish that have been in a tank that long. It's also been showing symptoms for two weeks, but the other clownfish is still fine.

Jay

Thanks for your take on this. That’s something I wondered too. The other fish is fine and like I mentioned they have been in this QT for over 6 months after successfully treating for ich.