New clown seems to be struggling

Jay Hemdal

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Not true, you are correct that for the most part it will be non toxic to marine fish at the levels we would see in our systems.. BUT significant, severe elevations can still throw off homeostasis even in marine fish.

Check out Noga, 2010. He gives one example where the LC50 of spotted sea trout in 16 ppt seawater was 980 mg/l NO2-N. The chloride ion, in greater than a 2:1 ratio, blocks the toxicity of nitrite. 1 ppt seawater (barely brackish) contains 500 mg/l chloride. so would render nitrite non-toxic on the order of 250 ppm. The highest level I've ever recall measuring in an aquarium is around 1 ppm.

Jay
 
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mjw88

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Little guy is sticking by return jet
 

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Jay Hemdal

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Little guy is sticking by return jet

Ugh - that is a primary symptom of a gill disease or water quality issue. Freshwater fish will pipe at the surface, but marine fish typically swim into water currents. As I mentioned might be possible, this is all cascading quickly. Trouble is, without a clear secondary symptom, I can't tell you what gill problem is the issue.

First thing to do is increase the aeration in the tank. The surface of your tank is completely still and I can see an oily film on it - you need to agitate that and break the surface tension. The best way to do this is with an air stone. Second best way would be if your pumps can be set to suck in air from above the tank. Third best would be to aim the water outflow from the pump at the surface.

Then, if no relief is seen, you'll need to take a guess at what gill disease is going on - a 5 minute FW dip might buy you some time. Due to how fast things came up, you might need to dose with copper as the issue could be velvet (Amyloodinium).

I'm really hoping that it is just low dissolved oxygen, high carbon dioxide here - and aeration will resolve that....

Jay
 
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mjw88

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Ugh - that is a primary symptom of a gill disease or water quality issue. Freshwater fish will pipe at the surface, but marine fish typically swim into water currents. As I mentioned might be possible, this is all cascading quickly. Trouble is, without a clear secondary symptom, I can't tell you what gill problem is the issue.

First thing to do is increase the aeration in the tank. The surface of your tank is completely still and I can see an oily film on it - you need to agitate that and break the surface tension. The best way to do this is with an air stone. Second best way would be if your pumps can be set to suck in air from above the tank. Third best would be to aim the water outflow from the pump at the surface.

Then, if no relief is seen, you'll need to take a guess at what gill disease is going on - a 5 minute FW dip might buy you some time. Due to how fast things came up, you might need to dose with copper as the issue could be velvet (Amyloodinium).

I'm really hoping that it is just low dissolved oxygen, high carbon dioxide here - and aeration will resolve that....

Jay
Thank you, for the response, the film is new, haven’t been home to see that yet, could that be from feeding? The frozen brine perhaps?
 
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mjw88

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Thank you, for the response, the film is new, haven’t been home to see that yet, could that be from feeding? The frozen brine perhaps?
Ugh - that is a primary symptom of a gill disease or water quality issue. Freshwater fish will pipe at the surface, but marine fish typically swim into water currents. As I mentioned might be possible, this is all cascading quickly. Trouble is, without a clear secondary symptom, I can't tell you what gill problem is the issue.

First thing to do is increase the aeration in the tank. The surface of your tank is completely still and I can see an oily film on it - you need to agitate that and break the surface tension. The best way to do this is with an air stone. Second best way would be if your pumps can be set to suck in air from above the tank. Third best would be to aim the water outflow from the pump at the surface.

Then, if no relief is seen, you'll need to take a guess at what gill disease is going on - a 5 minute FW dip might buy you some time. Due to how fast things came up, you might need to dose with copper as the issue could be velvet (Amyloodinium).

I'm really hoping that it is just low dissolved oxygen, high carbon dioxide here - and aeration will resolve that....

Jay
The only reason I ask as I had only fed them pellets and they were perfectly fine, last night I gave them a cube of frozen brine shrimp and they devoured it but I woke up to this, just wondering if it’s a coincidence or something related.
 
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mjw88

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I sent the video to the LFS owner he is going to have me bring him in tomorrow if he doesn’t improve, he asked what I fed him and I said I dropped a cube of frozen brine, he asked how much they ate, I told him all of it, which the 2 clowns did, they definitely feasted. He said sometimes overeating can cause them to be stressed, I asked about the O2 and he said with my refugium and sump he wouldn’t think O2 would be the culprit but it’s definitely something to try, other than that he also suggested a FW dip but said it could just further stress him. He also wanted up close pictures to rule out velvet or ich but was skeptical because nothing from that tank has had issues yet (the 2 live rocks, the goby and clowns all came from his large breeder tank)
 

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Not true, you are correct that for the most part it will be non toxic to marine fish at the levels we would see in our systems.. BUT significant, severe elevations can still throw off homeostasis even in marine fish.
Interesting, what do you consider significant elevations?
 

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Check out Noga, 2010. He gives one example where the LC50 of spotted sea trout in 16 ppt seawater was 980 mg/l NO2-N. The chloride ion, in greater than a 2:1 ratio, blocks the toxicity of nitrite. 1 ppt seawater (barely brackish) contains 500 mg/l chloride. so would render nitrite non-toxic on the order of 250 ppm. The highest level I've ever recall measuring in an aquarium is around 1 ppm.

Jay
Sounds interesting, I will have to give it a read, is it on PubMed?
Interesting, what do you consider significant elevations?
Beyond what I would expect any saltwater aquarium to get to. I missed the part of Jay’s first post, during a cycle. I would consider in the 300ppm+ range based off of this article.

 
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mjw88

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Check out Noga, 2010. He gives one example where the LC50 of spotted sea trout in 16 ppt seawater was 980 mg/l NO2-N. The chloride ion, in greater than a 2:1 ratio, blocks the toxicity of nitrite. 1 ppt seawater (barely brackish) contains 500 mg/l chloride. so would render nitrite non-toxic on the order of 250 ppm. The highest level I've ever recall measuring in an aquarium is around 1 ppm.

Jay
Hey Jay here are some pics and a video, if I turn the pump off he goes back to normal, he’s eating good and hanging out. Turn the pump on and he’s right back up there surfing
 

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mjw88

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Ugh - that is a primary symptom of a gill disease or water quality issue. Freshwater fish will pipe at the surface, but marine fish typically swim into water currents. As I mentioned might be possible, this is all cascading quickly. Trouble is, without a clear secondary symptom, I can't tell you what gill problem is the issue.

First thing to do is increase the aeration in the tank. The surface of your tank is completely still and I can see an oily film on it - you need to agitate that and break the surface tension. The best way to do this is with an air stone. Second best way would be if your pumps can be set to suck in air from above the tank. Third best would be to aim the water outflow from the pump at the surface.

Then, if no relief is seen, you'll need to take a guess at what gill disease is going on - a 5 minute FW dip might buy you some time. Due to how fast things came up, you might need to dose with copper as the issue could be velvet (Amyloodinium).

I'm really hoping that it is just low dissolved oxygen, high carbon dioxide here - and aeration will resolve that....

Jay
Here’s another video
 

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Jay Hemdal

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O.K., those pictures show the secondary symptoms I was talking about. The fish has ich or velvet. It also has a notch in its fin, probably from being bitten by the other clown (pair bonds in clowns often breakdown) or some other fish in the tank.

There isn't going to be any easy road to recovery here - treating the fish in copper (in a bare treatment tank) would be what I would suggest.

Jay
 
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mjw88

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O.K., those pictures show the secondary symptoms I was talking about. The fish has ich or velvet. It also has a notch in its fin, probably from being bitten by the other clown (pair bonds in clowns often breakdown) or some other fish in the tank.

There isn't going to be any easy road to recovery here - treating the fish in copper (in a bare treatment tank) would be what I would suggest.

Jay
Ok, I’ll plan on starting that today, so what should be my plan of action with my display tank and the other 2 fish? At this point I only have the other clown and the fire goby, are they going to get this? Should I treat the whole tank with copper? Also, how did this happen? My tank is new and the only things I added were these clowns and the fire goby and I bought them at the same time and from the same tank. They had been fine for weeks/months at the fish store. The live rock I added weeks ago was also from the same tank? Just curious if it was something they already had or if it came from their food? Just seems odd for something to manifest itself right after I re homed them.
 

Jay Hemdal

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Ok, I’ll plan on starting that today, so what should be my plan of action with my display tank and the other 2 fish? At this point I only have the other clown and the fire goby, are they going to get this? Should I treat the whole tank with copper? Also, how did this happen? My tank is new and the only things I added were these clowns and the fire goby and I bought them at the same time and from the same tank. They had been fine for weeks/months at the fish store. The live rock I added weeks ago was also from the same tank? Just curious if it was something they already had or if it came from their food? Just seems odd for something to manifest itself right after I re homed them.
Unlikely to have come from the food. Fish often have latent diseases and the stress of the move causes it to show up. You might want to share one of those still pictures with your store to see what they think.
Fish don’t all come down sick at the same time, but should all be treated if exposed. If you treat the whole tank with copper it will be difficult to ever put invertebrates in that tank, as the copper may absorb into the rocks and gravel.
Jay
 
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mjw88

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Unlikely to have come from the food. Fish often have latent diseases and the stress of the move causes it to show up. You might want to share one of those still pictures with your store to see what they think.
Fish don’t all come down sick at the same time, but should all be treated if exposed. If you treat the whole tank with copper it will be difficult to ever put invertebrates in that tank, as the copper may absorb into the rocks and gravel.
Jay
Ok thank you! How long would it remain in the DT after removal of the fish?
 

Jay Hemdal

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Mini
Ok thank you! How long would it remain in the DT after removal of the fish?
A minimum of 45 days at 81 degrees to as long as 76 days at 78 degrees if you want to be conservative.
Jay
 

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There fine! They are just adjusting from what i can see in that vid.

My clowns did the same thing when i first added them. Tank bred clowns are wierd af and arnt use to much flow.

They will adjust, clowns dont do a heck of a lot and are a pretty boring fish imo. but thats just me.
 

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Sorry didnt see the second part, I would point your return to the surface of the water. I would also consider a small powerhead for your nano pointed at the surface.

The clowns are fine and if there eating thats a good sign, if fish are stressed or unhappy they generally wont eat. Honestly captive bred fish can show some odd behavier.

They look healthy to me from what you have shown in those vids.

Oh and if they are struggling to breathe then generally they will hang out at the surface
 

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I have a mated pair of Picasso Clowns, I added them to the tank 2 days ago, they explored and adjusted fine, found a few spots they like, they’ve been eating well and excitedly wiggle around when someone approaches. Early this am I came down and the little male was laying on the sand and looked to be breathing faster than the female, also seemed to be swimming “harder” and couldn’t come to the top. I had to be to work at 6am so I didn’t have much time to watch or address an issues, I did a quick test and I have no Ammonia or Nitrates, ph 8, salinity 1.025, temp 80.7, after I got ready to leave I checked on him again and he seemed back to normal. Just wondering if I caught him sleeping or if something else is afoot. I’ve researched this stuff pretty extensively, just wondering if I’m being paranoid or something I need to watch out for.

photos are from last nights feeding, frozen brine shrimp

60F100D5-A8DC-4A2B-9EA7-90F2F532F165.png 63F9D94C-F6A0-4A95-8704-891F56F48DC1.png
Every single night like clockwork one of my clowns lays down just like that almost as if he’s sleeping and every morning I turn on the light he’s swimming around just fine I don’t know if there’s something wrong or not but my clown seem to be doing fine and they do the same thing.
 

Jay Hemdal

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Sorry didnt see the second part, I would point your return to the surface of the water. I would also consider a small powerhead for your nano pointed at the surface.

The clowns are fine and if there eating thats a good sign, if fish are stressed or unhappy they generally wont eat. Honestly captive bred fish can show some odd behavier.

They look healthy to me from what you have shown in those vids.

Oh and if they are struggling to breathe then generally they will hang out at the surface
Sorry, did you see the still pictures from last night? The clown clearly has an external protozoan infection .
Jay
 
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