Clownfish Disease

[DeanB.reef]

Looking for some advice on marking on my male clownfish, spots on mandarin and death of royal gramma. I noticed the pink marking on the male clownfish’ head around 6 days ago

I used FluxRX 3 weeks ago and did the full 2 week cycle by removing cheato and carbon. I’ve since added carbon back a week ago which I read can cause HLLE. Since the FluxRX treatment there’s been a small build up of cyano (nitrates - ~5ppm phos - not detectable) My royal gramma is on his way out due to old age and has been swimming less frequently but when he does he sometimes flicks zoas when he passes by. He’s always flicked the sand a few times a day in the 2 years I’ve had him but nothing seen on his body. (Royal Gramma has died as of today, more information below)

Came home Saturday night and there dots all over my clown so wondering if anyone had any advice

Clown is swimming and eating fine. The only difference I’ve noticed is he flicks his fins really fast sometimes as if he’s irritated a little bit. No rubbing on rocks or anything though.

All pictures are of the same clownfish, it probably looks darker because of the camera and blue lights.

My mandarin has some white marks on his head and one bigger one on his fin. He’s swimming and eating as normal including coming up for his frozen food.

Female clown looks and is acting fine.

The royal gramma hasn’t been eating in a week and I honestly think he was on his way out as I’ve had him ~2.5 years and he’s 3” long. He was rapidly breathing and then came out for a 15-20 frenzy before dying as video’d below. Does this look like a normal death at of

Quick timeline

Tuesday night (picture I took without knowing the white dots was there)

Saturday night;

Sunday morning;

MinnFinn was used Sunday afternoon which is hydrogen peroxide based dip that can be used in the DT tank for fish and coral

Sunday night;

Performed a 5 minute temperature matched fresh water dip on the male clown.

Monday night;

Tuesday morning;

Tuesday night (just now);

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Visual IDs from pictures is difficult. In some, it looks like advanced ich, in others it looks like early brooklynella. Since the fish is eating fine, and evidently not breathing fast, you can rule out velvet. I think you can also rule out Brooklnelka- I couldn’t open your video, but Brook makes clownfish swim “mopey” with clamped fins. By process of elimination, I’d say this is ich.
Peroxide won’t cure that at levels that invertebrates will tolerate. That means copper or hyposalinity in a treatment tank I’m afraid…..
Jay

 

[vetteguy53081]

At first glance, I too thought ich but the heavy amount of mucus around the face and gills suggests brooklynella. Is the fish breathing heavily and stopped eating and displaying lethargic behavior?
Additionally does it hang near top of tank?
For temporary relief, you can offer the fish a 5 minute freshwater dip in a clean container to reduce the slime
Do note that this dip is not a cure and can stress the fish further

 

[DeanB.reef]

Visual IDs from pictures is difficult. In some, it looks like advanced ich, in others it looks like early brooklynella. Since the fish is eating fine, and evidently not breathing fast, you can rule out velvet. I think you can also rule out Brooklnelka- I couldn’t open your video, but Brook makes clownfish swim “mopey” with clamped fins. By process of elimination, I’d say this is ich.
Peroxide won’t cure that at levels that invertebrates will tolerate. That means copper or hyposalinity in a treatment tank I’m afraid…..
Jay

The only thing that was added to the tank recently was the mandarin about 6 months ago and emerald crab about 4 months ago. Can ich be contracted out of nothing or does it have to be passed from fish to fish?

The only reason I’ve noticed this is because of how the male clown looks visually, everything else is completely normal.

A copper QT is already set up and ready to go. Would you recommend putting both clownfish in QT and leaving the mandarin and cleaner shrimp in the DT as they won’t tolerate copper?

Stocking of DT;
2x clowns
Mandarin
Cleaner shrimp
CUC

 

[DeanB.reef]

 

[DeanB.reef]

At first glance, I too thought ich but the heavy amount of mucus around the face and gills suggests brooklynella. Is the fish breathing heavily and stopped eating and displaying lethargic behavior?
Additionally does it hang near top of tank?
For temporary relief, you can offer the fish a 5 minute freshwater dip in a clean container to reduce the slime
Do note that this dip is not a cure and can stress the fish further

the fish is acting as if nothing is wrong, breathing fine, swimming fine and still eating frozen meaty foods multiple times a day. He hangs around all over the tank from top to bottom, in low flow where they sleep and medium flow in the middle of the tank, nothing unusual. I performed a FW dip yesterday and nothing came off apart from some small detritus looking bits.

Unsure whether to leave him in the DT and continue to feed heavy to naturally recover or potentially stress them out by putting them into copper

 

[Jay Hemdal]

This is the gramma before it died? It is moribund here, close to death. I can't tell what the infection is, but is definitely has an external parasite of some sort.

Jay

 

[DeanB.reef]

This is the gramma before it died? It is moribund here, close to death. I can't tell what the infection is, but is definitely has an external parasite of some sort.

Jay

Yes, did this for around 20 minutes then just passed. Still can’t really get my head around how ich (or any other parasite) has gotten into the tank if nothing new has been added in 4 months or so. Hammer was added on Friday but my royal gramma wasn’t eating and clown had dots a couple days before then, just after FluxRX treatment had finished

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Yes, did this for around 20 minutes then just passed. Still can’t really get my head around how ich (or any other parasite) has gotten into the tank if nothing new has been added in 4 months or so. Hammer was added on Friday but my royal gramma wasn’t eating and clown had dots a couple days before then, just after FluxRX treatment had finished

Fluke infestations certainly have a timeline that goes out more than 4 months in some cases. Even ich can simmer for quite some time and then if the fish are stressed, it becomes a full blown infection. Additionally, anything "wet" added to your tank from an infected source has the potential of carrying that disease in with it.

I hear vague reports of Fluconazole sometimes causing bad reactions, but I suspect that those reports are a result of misidentification of the cause: somebody goes into full algae killing mode and makes a bunch of changes to a tank, adds Fluc and then has a problem and attributes it to that, but it could as easily been something else they did.

Jay

 

[DeanB.reef]

Okay so a few days has been passed and my mandarin unfortunately died. It had white spots all over its face but was eating fine. It’s also impossible to get CP here in the UK which left me with the TTM or hypo-salinity, both probably would have stressed the fish to the point of death anyway. The mandarin had frayed fins when it was dead which I’m unsure was caused by something eating it or something else?

The clowns being the only fish left are now in QT copper which I’m slow increasing (as of today it’s at ~0.2) the spots on them look better but the female now has the SAME mark as the male had on his head. Today it’s more fleshy looking which follows the timeline of the male’s ‘infection’. The males fins are also more frayed/shredded looking.

I’d want to rule out aggression because it’s unlike they would inflict the same injury on each other? The female was reluctant to eat yesterday but is now eating in QT



Female

Male

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Okay so a few days has been passed and my mandarin unfortunately died. It had white spots all over its face but was eating fine. It’s also impossible to get CP here in the UK which left me with the TTM or hypo-salinity, both probably would have stressed the fish to the point of death anyway. The mandarin had frayed fins when it was dead which I’m unsure was caused by something eating it or something else?

The clowns being the only fish left are now in QT copper which I’m slow increasing (as of today it’s at ~0.2) the spots on them look better but the female now has the SAME mark as the male had on his head. Today it’s more fleshy looking which follows the timeline of the male’s ‘infection’. The males fins are also more frayed/shredded looking.

I’d want to rule out aggression because it’s unlike they would inflict the same injury on each other? The female was reluctant to eat yesterday but is now eating in QT



Female

Male

The male has bite marks on its fins. The lesion on the females head could be an injury, tough to say. Clowns can be pretty sly at hiding their aggression from you, but they do leave signs on the fins.
You say you are at 0.20 copper? What type of copper are you using? Raising copper to slowly leaves the fish open to disease until you hit the full dose.
Jay

 

[DeanB.reef]

The male has bite marks on its fins. The lesion on the females head could be an injury, tough to say. Clowns can be pretty sly at hiding their aggression from you, but they do leave signs on the fins.
You say you are at 0.20 copper? What type of copper are you using? Raising copper to slowly leaves the fish open to disease until you hit the full dose.
Jay

Cupramine. Following Humblefish’s write up at increasing it over 5-6 days. 0.5 is the end goal and it should be ~0.35 when I check today

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Cupramine. Following Humblefish’s write up at increasing it over 5-6 days. 0.5 is the end goal and it should be ~0.35 when I check today

Ah, that isn't a good idea if there is an active infection. If copper will be effective (but I'm not 100% sure of that - the latest pictures don't show classic ich) you've already lost two out of four fish to this disease. Taking another 5 to 6 days to get to a full dose may well result in additional loss. What happens is that copper is relatively ineffectual until you reach full dose. 5 to 6 days gives the disease to much of a chance to gain a stronger foothold.

This advice is an over-extrapolation of when copper/citric acid formulations were used. Those, if raised to full dose faster than 48 hours, would cause toxicity in some fish (notably pygmy angels). The idea then, was slower then must be better.....but it isn't always.

Think about dealers that put fish directly into full copper when they get new fish.

I use coppersafe, and I dose it twice, 12 to 18 hours apart, testing in between to ensure that I reach a proper dose. On aquariums where I know the exact dose from previous treatments, and I know there is no residual copper, I just add it.

The two risks with cupramine are: inaccurate measurements or using it in the presence of a reducing agent (Prime, formalin, ammonia removers).

I was on my phone last night and can see the photo better on my desktop this morning. That head lesion looks pretty serious, and is not related to ich. It could be a fungal infection, or it could be a bacterial infection - trouble is, there is no way to tell visually....

Jay

 

[DeanB.reef]

Ah, that isn't a good idea if there is an active infection. If copper will be effective (but I'm not 100% sure of that - the latest pictures don't show classic ich) you've already lost two out of four fish to this disease. Taking another 5 to 6 days to get to a full dose may well result in additional loss. What happens is that copper is relatively ineffectual until you reach full dose. 5 to 6 days gives the disease to much of a chance to gain a stronger foothold.

This advice is an over-extrapolation of when copper/citric acid formulations were used. Those, if raised to full dose faster than 48 hours, would cause toxicity in some fish (notably pygmy angels). The idea then, was slower then must be better.....but it isn't always.

Think about dealers that put fish directly into full copper when they get new fish.

I use coppersafe, and I dose it twice, 12 to 18 hours apart, testing in between to ensure that I reach a proper dose. On aquariums where I know the exact dose from previous treatments, and I know there is no residual copper, I just add it.

The two risks with cupramine are: inaccurate measurements or using it in the presence of a reducing agent (Prime, formalin, ammonia removers).

I was on my phone last night and can see the photo better on my desktop this morning. That head lesion looks pretty serious, and is not related to ich. It could be a fungal infection, or it could be a bacterial infection - trouble is, there is no way to tell visually....

Jay

Thanks for another reply. I feel danged if I do and danged if I don’t with this whole situation honestly. If it is an infection more than ich (which I’ve been swayed towards from the beginning a little bit) then copper won’t help and might make it slightly worse?

On the positive, the ‘fleshyness’ around the red wound seems to have fallen off like what happened with the male. The male seems to be healing where it’s less red and reducing in area slightly. It looks very similar to an open wound on a human where it’s red initially then gets darker and darker before healing fully.

I’m torn between keeping them in copper and doing a whole tank fallow and experimenting with loads of treatments without fully knowing what’s going on.

Cheers

 

[DeanB.reef]

Bit of an update from today and I’ll try to keep it updated right through for anyone who finds this.

Copper is so far going well and holding at 0.5ppm, ammonia goes up then I do a water change to bring it back down remembering to account for copper.
The female took a bit of a turn a few days ago and was laying on the bottom of the QT tank then on her side although breathing normal. The following day she spent a lot of time at the surface - again breathing fine. I came back from being out all day on day 3 and she was back to normal; actively swimming with and without the male, coming up closer when I approached the tank and accepting food again.

The marks on their heads is still there but ‘healing’ nicely on the male and looking less red on the female.

Again I have no idea what the problem is or if I’ve had anything to do with fixing it. It could just be an outbreak of ich which killed the royal gramma and mandarin. I also think me doing a course of FluxRX probably wiped out the copepod population (cheato was removed as well) causing stress to the mandarin. The clowns have been fighting and stressed themselves out with the change in parameters with using FluxRX. And the royal gramma was old and probably on his way out anyway.

That’s what I’d like to believe but I guess I’ll keep observing the clowns and see what happens.

cheers

 

[DeanB.reef]

The main display finished its ~76 day fallow period which ended up as a couple days later due to guests and other commitments. Clownfish were re-acclimated and everything so far is running smooth.

The clownfish seemed way calmer in the transfer bucketed and was actively following me for food as soon as they got back into the DT. They also remember their corner. The male is way smarter at evading the net as well.

Disappointed I lost my manderian out of all this but feel as if lessons were learned and I’ve gained a lot of equipment to better deal with outbreaks in the future. It’ll all be used in a QT system I’ll be using from now on to try avoid this situation again.

Cheers for everyones input!

 

[BigD13]

Looking for some advice on marking on my male clownfish, spots on mandarin and death of royal gramma. I noticed the pink marking on the male clownfish’ head around 6 days ago

I used FluxRX 3 weeks ago and did the full 2 week cycle by removing cheato and carbon. I’ve since added carbon back a week ago which I read can cause HLLE. Since the FluxRX treatment there’s been a small build up of cyano (nitrates - ~5ppm phos - not detectable) My royal gramma is on his way out due to old age and has been swimming less frequently but when he does he sometimes flicks zoas when he passes by. He’s always flicked the sand a few times a day in the 2 years I’ve had him but nothing seen on his body. (Royal Gramma has died as of today, more information below)

Came home Saturday night and there dots all over my clown so wondering if anyone had any advice

Clown is swimming and eating fine. The only difference I’ve noticed is he flicks his fins really fast sometimes as if he’s irritated a little bit. No rubbing on rocks or anything though.

All pictures are of the same clownfish, it probably looks darker because of the camera and blue lights.

My mandarin has some white marks on his head and one bigger one on his fin. He’s swimming and eating as normal including coming up for his frozen food.

Female clown looks and is acting fine.

The royal gramma hasn’t been eating in a week and I honestly think he was on his way out as I’ve had him ~2.5 years and he’s 3” long. He was rapidly breathing and then came out for a 15-20 frenzy before dying as video’d below. Does this look like a normal death at of

Quick timeline

Tuesday night (picture I took without knowing the white dots was there)

Saturday night;

Sunday morning;

MinnFinn was used Sunday afternoon which is hydrogen peroxide based dip that can be used in the DT tank for fish and coral

Sunday night;

Performed a 5 minute temperature matched fresh water dip on the male clown.

Monday night;

Tuesday morning;

Tuesday night (just now);

Hi. I know this happened a while ago but I just came across it looking for my own advice. You said you gave minnfinn on only one night. It takes at least three treatments of that to get rid of the baby inch that attaches to the fish and grows into the white spots you see. I used it in my pond-worked like a charm and have just finished my third dose in my reef tank. I’ll have to wait a few days for those results. I first noticed it in my hippo tang, but like you, was unsure. Then I started seeing it on my yellow tang. The first day after treatment the tang was covered in ich. But the next day it was all gone except one spot. The hippo still has something on him but I’m not quite sure that is anything really. Also, my corals love it! And it does not kill invertebrates like someone said. Plus, it works on several other external fish maladies.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hi. I know this happened a while ago but I just came across it looking for my own advice. You said you gave minnfinn on only one night. It takes at least three treatments of that to get rid of the baby inch that attaches to the fish and grows into the white spots you see. I used it in my pond-worked like a charm and have just finished my third dose in my reef tank. I’ll have to wait a few days for those results. I first noticed it in my hippo tang, but like you, was unsure. Then I started seeing it on my yellow tang. The first day after treatment the tang was covered in ich. But the next day it was all gone except one spot. The hippo still has something on him but I’m not quite sure that is anything really. Also, my corals love it! And it does not kill invertebrates like someone said. Plus, it works on several other external fish maladies.

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

MinnFinn is hydrogen peroxide and an organic peroxide. These compounds have gotten a lot of "press" lately, but there are risks. Peroxides are relatively safe for corals, but can be deadly to shrimp. Also, the residual level of peroxide is wholly dependent on the organic loading in the tank - tanks with more organics burn off the peroxides faster than tanks with fewer organics. That makes dosing tough, as each system is different. I always suggest using a low dose peroxide test strip whenever dosing a peroxide.

Jay