I have had 2 clowns and 1 watchman goby. One clown died overnight.

[Mich16]

I bought a pair of clowns from a lfs. I had a qt setup. They seemed to have worms because of stringy poop, so I treated them with focus and metroplex for 10 days. Symptoms left and they seemed happy. I didn’t see a reason to treat copper so I transferred them to the main tank 90 gal with 30 gal sump. They have been happy and swimming around for the past couple weeks. They both have eaten pretty well twice a day. Overnight I lost one of the clowns. I looked for her this morning but went to work. When the wife and I got home I started moving rocks and found her up in between a couple of them. The goby is active and eats like a king. The smaller clown that is still alive doesn’t seem as sparky as he normal is today. The one that died was very active and would eat like there was no tomorrow the past couple days. She also had started swimming in the jets more often. Which after reading it could mean something else. So my question is, what should I do next? Parameters were
Ph 8.1
Alk 6
Ammonia.02
No2 .02
No3 4.0
I did a 15 gallon water change after moving the rocks around. Blue background was after I found her today. Photo of her swimming is from last Sunday. And photo with both is them in Qt. It’s very disappointing after trying to do it the right way and something like this happens.

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

What size tank? U have a protein skimmer?
D

 

[Mich16]

What size tank? U have a protein skimmer?
D

90gal tank 30gal sump yes. I run it with 2 filter socks

 

[Mich16]

This is the whole set up. LED light strip was just to see what it would look like under lights

 

[fishguy242]

@Jay Hemdal @vetteguy53081

 

[vetteguy53081]

Symptoms:
- any swimming behavior
- loss of appetite?
- Hazy milky look to face or body?
- Increased breathing ?
- listless or lethargic behavior ?

 

[Mich16]

Symptoms:
- any swimming behavior
- loss of appetite?
- Hazy milky look to face or body?
- Increased breathing ?
- listless or lethargic behavior ?

The one who died swam around a lot in the past couple days and I assumed it was getting happy with the new tank. The other one has always been the more chill fish he kind of hangs in his own area on the back of the tank around the overflow. The thing is the one who died never had stringy poop but was really weird about things. The one still living is the only clown with stringy poop in Qt.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

The one who died swam around a lot in the past couple days and I assumed it was getting happy with the new tank. The other one has always been the more chill fish he kind of hangs in his own area on the back of the tank around the overflow. The thing is the one who died never had stringy poop but was really weird about things. The one still living is the only clown with stringy poop in Qt.

The mucus in the feces is pretty common in new clownfish and may not be related. I heard you say the one clown was "swimming into the jets". That is one symptom of Amyloodinium/velvet. The primary symptom of that is rapid breathing, but you may not see that in small clownfish, or may not recognize it if you aren't familiar with that symptom. Any chance the fish are breathing faster than normal?

Jay

 

[Mich16]

The mucus in the feces is pretty common in new clownfish and may not be related. I heard you say the one clown was "swimming into the jets". That is one symptom of Amyloodinium/velvet. The primary symptom of that is rapid breathing, but you may not see that in small clownfish, or may not recognize it if you aren't familiar with that symptom. Any chance the fish are breathing faster than normal?

Jay

They haven seemed to be recently. They did in the Qt tank but I think it tried to crash when I was medicating. The Ph was low somehow but I did a quick water change and all was good. I’ll go check out the other guy and see how his breathing is.

 

[Mich16]

The mucus in the feces is pretty common in new clownfish and may not be related. I heard you say the one clown was "swimming into the jets". That is one symptom of Amyloodinium/velvet. The primary symptom of that is rapid breathing, but you may not see that in small clownfish, or may not recognize it if you aren't familiar with that symptom. Any chance the fish are breathing faster than normal?

Jay

This is him this morning he is still hanging out on the back wall. He is doing this inverted swim thing also

 

[Jay Hemdal]

This is him this morning he is still hanging out on the back wall. He is doing this inverted swim thing also

I’m sorry, fish are tough to photograph, I really can’t discern anything from the photos though.....if you think it is velvet, you could give the fish a 5 minute dip to try and buy some time, but then, the best treatment would be copper in a QT.

Jay

 

[Tamberav]

Maybe not related but the one that died looks poorly bred/deformed to me. It's face specifically. Looks like it should have been culled to me.

 

[Mich16]

Maybe not related but the one that died looks poorly bred/deformed to me. It's face specifically. Looks like it should have been culled to me.

My wife grew up farming sheep and cattle. She had the same observation. The other fish have seemed happy eat aggressively. There was always something different about the one who died but that’s what you get with designer animals. They look cool but it’s because of genetic defects and could cause other unknown defects. The full white clown is now happy as can be so I’m going to push forward and try to get him someone to hang out with soon.