Any way to save my clown?

[Yanchik]

I bought a pretty young clown a couple of weeks ago, he seemed fine in the store. Problem is he didn't want to eat anything we gave him. We tried flakes (a clown we had a while ago ate them), slow sinking morsels, and the algae/meaty flozen food (along with some garlic additive for flavor) that is made for angles but my fish store said that other fish love it too. He refused to eat anything! I was hoping to get some m. shrimp or ocean plankton but the store was out of it. He does pick copipods and tiny slugs off the glass all the time so I know he was getting some food in.

Now he is not doing well at all. Yesterday I noticed that he is swimming funny, more wabbly than usual, and is very close to the surface. He also lies on one side at the surface of the tank, but then he'll make short trips away from the surface to pick bufs off the glass.

We checked water parameters recently, everything seems to be within norm. No ammonia, nitrates and nitrites are within range, I had to increase PH two days after we got him cuz it was way too low (7.9 and now 8.5). Salinity is at 1.022 now, we increased it a bit. Is it still too low? Coult it affect his well-being? What are some other things I can look into? I would appreciate any help as I would absolutely hate to loose the little bugger He is the only fish in the tank so far, but we have a peppermint shrimp and 5 different snails (turbo, margarita, and some other one) and they all seem to be doing fine.

Thank you in advance!

 

[demonsp]

Sounds like he needs some O2.
How loang have you had him?
Whats used for water flow?
Whats the tank size and age?

 

[snorvich]

Agree with above. Is there a skimmer? Filtration? Powerhead? Size tank?

 

[inachu]

I'm a newbie and all I can say if you have a skimmer please open it all the way up for now for max bubbles.

 

[inachu]

I had a clown that loved to sleep on his side. Other than that he was wide awake and alert when feeding time.
I thought and still feel false peculas act like dogs sometimes.

But one day I found that my hermit ate him.
Well you know I threw out my hermit...... sales man never told me he was a hunter also.....Grrrrrrr bad sales man!

 

[demonsp]

The tank gets the most O2 from surface exchange.You dont need any bubbles.

http://ca.answers.yahoo.com/answers2/frontend.php/question?qid=20071119115630AAlyAP7&show=7

 

[Philwd]

While that is true in the case of a distressed fish extra O2 from a bubbler can only help. It has helped me save more than 1 fish.

Yanchik - if you have a powerhead in the tank make sure it is causing surface agitation too. If an oily film is forming it will impede O2 diffusion.