Clownfish Parasite and Fin Rot

[Jjo]

Hello,

My clownfish has a parasitic or internal bacterial infection- pooping long clear and sometimes white strings- I haven’t seen white since I started medicating the tank. He is refusing food still. I have had him for almost a week from Petco.

My tank:
I have a 20 gallon nuvo fusion, my tank has been running for a month. It was cycled, I added more fish, and my ammonia had spiked to about .25-1 ppm over the last week in my test results. I did a large almost 100% water change last night and dosed more nitrifying bacteria.
It looks like my ammonia is 0, nitrite 0, and nitrate 10-20 ppm today with API test kit. My salinity I keep at 1.025, I keep temp 77.5-78 with the apex. My pH probe is off I think I need a new one (calibrated twice) because it says my pH is 7.3, but my API test kit showed 7.8.
I have my protein skimmer running but without the cup just for aeration purposes attached to a CO2 scrubber.

Disease Observation:
I have 2 clownfish- one clownfish is eating and healthy, the other one has been pooping long strings of clear to white feces. The entire time I have had him I have not seen him accept any kind of food at all. He is skinny, I can see the bone that runs lengthwise across his body. He always breathes rapidly. It started as what looked like ich- but based on some advice on this thread it was likely lymphocystis. It was just one white dot. I manually removed it with a Qtip. He started with fading patches of color on his body and scratching against the back of the tank. He is swimming fairly normal, no erratic crazy swimming, he’s not gasping for air, he hangs out in the mid section height of the back of the tank. 2 days ago I noticed back fin fraying. Today his rear fin is practically gone. His eyes are clear, no fungal infection growing. His patches of fading color seem to be improving.

Disease Diagnosis:
I suspect he has multiple things going on. I suspect malnutrition- obviously- he hasn’t eaten. Internal parasitic worms or bacterial infection, maybe even flukes. I also suspect secondary bacterial fin rot maybe due to poor water quality over the last week with the ammonia spike I had combined with malnutrition.

Disease Treatment:
20 gallon Nuvo
I dosed the tank starting about 3 days ago with 3 mL prazipro and 6 level scoops of sulfaplex. I did a full water change last night and redosed the tank. No chemical filtration running, protein skimmer is on but without the cup for aeration.
Today I dosed with 10 mL stressguard and 10mL paraguard. I also added prime to defoxify any ammonia spike I might have. I have kanaplex coming tomorrow just in case but I think sulfaplex and paraguard might be enough for internal and external bacterial infection? I know kanaplex is better absorbed for fish that are not eating.
I am concerned about his tail fin rot and the fact he is refusing any and all food that is offered to him.
I have tried a large variety of frozen food, 2 different kinds of flake food, 2 different kind of pellet food, added garlic, added brightwell vitamarin c... he won’t eat, period. I also dosed the tank with vitamarin C and Seachem Vitality into the water hoping to be absorbed by the fish.
I am not sure if I am doing the right things, I don’t know if I can save this fish because he won’t eat, I also don’t know if what I am doing is working. Advice would be much appreciated!


I attached some photos of the fish from 2 days ago when he still had his tail fin to today with no tail fin. You can see the scratch marks on the back of the tank- he’s not scratching anymore though which is good. It’s hard to take pictures that are clear, but I had just fed the tank in the picture and I even tried feeding copepod powder and plankton.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I hate to say it, but it is unlikely that you will be able to save this fish. I agree with you, it seems to have multiple issues, probably stemming from before you bought it. The only issue I see with what you've been doing is that ammonia spike - 1 ppm is high enough to outright kill some fish. Turns out though, ammonia is only toxic at a high pH, so your relatively low pH kept the fish alive. Be sure to keep the ammonia down below 0.25 ppm through water changes and/or ammonia reducers. Don't add vitamins or other food ingredients directly to the water - the fish can't utilize them that way, but they do get converted to ammonia, just like uneaten food.

Jay

 

[Jjo]

I hate to say it, but it is unlikely that you will be able to save this fish. I agree with you, it seems to have multiple issues, probably stemming from before you bought it. The only issue I see with what you've been doing is that ammonia spike - 1 ppm is high enough to outright kill some fish. Turns out though, ammonia is only toxic at a high pH, so your relatively low pH kept the fish alive. Be sure to keep the ammonia down below 0.25 ppm through water changes and/or ammonia reducers. Don't add vitamins or other food ingredients directly to the water - the fish can't utilize them that way, but they do get converted to ammonia, just like uneaten food.

Jay

Oh! Thank you for telling me that, I didn’t think of vitamins breaking down into ammonia like that. Yeah my ammonia spike and water quality I think led to the fin rot, so I did that large water change and have been feeding much less. I changed out 2.5 gallons tonight just because I want to make sure this doesn’t happen again. I hope he survives. I also didn’t realize my red ogo algae was deteorating in the refugium in the back of the tank. I recently put chaeto in and Idk if its the bacteria or the chaeto starving the red ogo but the chaeto seems to be breaking easily now so maybe my biological filtration is increased alot now. I’ll keep an eye on it and if it keeps deteorating I’m going to take the refugium out and replace it
with my media reactor once the few weeks of medication has passed if this fish survives.

 

[ScottJ437]

Did your clown make it? I have a similar issue with one of mine.