Dying Clown Fish

sh123 · Oct 20, 2018

Hello,

Yesterday my male clown fish died and now I notice my female looks sick. She has white lines on her black areas, inside of he scales look red and she has been swimming at the top of the tank. Please see pictures and let me know if you can help me figure out what is wrong and what to do...thanks.

Crabs McJones · Oct 20, 2018

Your clowns appear to be suffering from a parasite called brooklynella. You need to transfer them to a quarantine tank ASAP and begin treating. And your display tank needs to sit fallow for 78 days to kill off the parasite.
Brooklynella:

Symptoms – This is most often seen in clownfish, but it can afflict any fish. The fish’s skin will appear to be peeling or sloughing off, oftentimes causing excessive white mucous to form around the affected area(s).

Treatment options - Formalin or acriflavine bath, followed by additional baths (as needed - but give the fish a day to recuperate in-between baths). You can use formalin in a QT (at a much lower concentration than the bath), but great care must be taken to provide plenty of gas exchange as formalin will quickly deplete the water of oxygen. For this reason, doing baths is the safer option as the fish can be pulled from the formalin if showing signs of distress. Acriflavine is probably the better option for in-tank QT use.

The following products contain formalin: Formalin-MS (preferred), Quick Cure,Aquarium Solutions Ich-X, Kordon Rid-Ich Plus.

Acriflavine can be found in Acriflavine-MS (preferred) and Ruby Reef Rally.

Metronidazole (exs. Seachem MetroPlex, Metro-MS, Hikari Metro+) is considered an alternative treatment for brook. A freshwater dip may provide temporary relief if you are unable to locate any of the aforementioned medications right away. Some even claim total eradication of the disease is possible just by performing multiple FW dips on the fish.

Early stages: