Clown Fish Flipping Wildly

B

borg1of2

New member
All,

I have a very strange behaving Clown Fish that I am not finding any information that seems to explain this, even for Clown Fish. I think this might be bladder problem, but would appreciate others to look at the video and provide any comments or thoughts on the behavior.

Clown Fish Swimming Wildy

Scott
 
??

??

How long do have this clown? when did it start swimming in spirals? Has it been medicated or had signs of disease? It dosent look like swim bladder disease to me .It does however appear neurological.Possible guesses internal migrating parasites ,gas bubble lodged behind the eye region . Trama to the head
In anycase the prognosis seems poor, although I would make sure the water is pristine you might try prime or ameqeul if they are in copper free water and raising water temps to 80 of not already there. keep me posted hope he pulls thru
Dr.Pat
 
That's very strange. My first thought was stray voltage but the other clown is completely unphased. I'd have to lean to to parasite or neurological problem as well. Best of luck, for what it's worth.
 
DrPat said:
How long do have this clown? when did it start swimming in spirals? Has it been medicated or had signs of disease? It dosent look like swim bladder disease to me .It does however appear neurological.Possible guesses internal migrating parasites ,gas bubble lodged behind the eye region . Trama to the head
In anycase the prognosis seems poor, although I would make sure the water is pristine you might try prime or ameqeul if they are in copper free water and raising water temps to 80 of not already there. keep me posted hope he pulls thru
Dr.Pat
Click to expand...

Had them both just under 8 weeks now. They are in a 10 Gallon QT. Water Temp is at about 78. I used Prazipro for the first 2 weeks ish, then switched out the filter with one that had carbon to remove the meds. There have been no signs of disease, just strange swimming behavior. The flipping started about 5 weeks ago. He/She always had "weird" swimming behavior with a lot of times on the side.

This is our first set of clowns, and SW fish for that matter, and have tried to read about them and have generally thought previous behavior was "typical" of clowns, but then the flipping started.

My DT is empty, but I was planning on moving them both from the QT to the DT this weekend. Any thoughts or concerns?
 
borg1of2 said:
Had them both just under 8 weeks now. They are in a 10 Gallon QT. Water Temp is at about 78. I used Prazipro for the first 2 weeks ish, then switched out the filter with one that had carbon to remove the meds. There have been no signs of disease, just strange swimming behavior. The flipping started about 5 weeks ago. He/She always had "weird" swimming behavior with a lot of times on the side.

This is our first set of clowns, and SW fish for that matter, and have tried to read about them and have generally thought previous behavior was "typical" of clowns, but then the flipping started.

My DT is empty, but I was planning on moving them both from the QT to the DT this weekend. Any thoughts or concerns?
Click to expand...

Is this fish able to eat ? does it ever stabilze and thread water? Other fish may attack this fish as it swims eradicaly.Normally we keep fish in a qt for 2 to 3 months and treat with different meds to eliminate ick and other parasites from entering the dt.
 
DrPat said:
Is this fish able to eat ? does it ever stabilze and thread water? Other fish may attack this fish as it swims eradicaly.Normally we keep fish in a qt for 2 to 3 months and treat with different meds to eliminate ick and other parasites from entering the dt.
Click to expand...

Yes, he eats if you can get the food to him/her before it starts the flipping. If it starts flipping, then he misses it and the other eats. It's pellet type food. If he starts flipping we try to hold off with the feeding.

Yes, if you saw at the end of the video, he stopped/stabilized.

I haven't seen the other fish attack him. In the early days in the QT, it seemed like the other would pick on him, but it appeared to be "normal" clown pairing.

Understand there are many many approaches to QT. We choose to follow the Prazipro approach and then monitor. There just didn't seem to be any reason to do Cupramine or any other med.
 
Ive actually seen lots of fish do this shortly (few hours) before death. Ive always been under the influence that it was a swim bladder related problem. Ive never seen fish recover from the "death spiral"

This is interesting to me because he obviously isnt dead, and apparently has been doing this for awhile.

This would also lead me to believe its a neurological problem, like maybe fish epilepsy lol.

Does there seem to be a "trigger" or is it random?

Its kinda sad because he\she looks extremely labored at the end of the video. Very heavy breathing.

I hope it survives!

Also, I tip my hat to you for actually QT your fish. Many people do not and I think it can make or break many fish found in the hobby.
 
I think that fish had brain damage and is having seizure during these episodes. It is obvious, at least to me, that this fish has neurological problem. That is the only thing that make any sense. Obviously it is involuntary. At first I though that he was injured and is in a lot of pain, however, once this finish he seem just fatigue and tired.

You said that he often do not swim normal, it could be due to his brain injury. Swimming bladder disease does not cause symptoms like that. It is possible that the medication precipitate these seizures.

It look like that these fish are tank raise. Why are you treat them with such vigorous regime? All medications have side effects. Best not use if not needed.
 
OrionN said:
Why are you treat them with such vigorous regime? All medications have side effects. Best not use if not needed.
Click to expand...

I don't think we are employing a vigorous regime in the QT approach. 2 Weeks of Prazipro and the carbon in the filter media to remove from the water and monitor with normal water changes. Is this what you are referring to as vigorous regime?
 
These are tank raise fish, do you think you need to treat them for internal parasite? I am not saying that these medication cause problem. i just think that tank raise fish likely not needed Prazipro.
 
Tank raised does not eliminate the chance of parasites or disease. It may significantly reduce the chance but if the system they were raised in is a carrier, then the chance is there that those fish are too. Without knowing the system they come from, sometimes it's better safe than sorry.
 
can you get some white paper underneath the tank? It may seem odd, but seizures (for people prone to them) can be induced with flickering or bright light. (or so I understand) If the fish is prone to them (don't have any idea if that is even possible, let alone valid) maybe its the light reflecting off the bottom glass and/or then "bouncing" off the sides...
 
I'll try to change the light reflection. I've tried to watch to see what triggers, some times its a tap on the glass, or just the hand over the tank to try and feed. Other times those actions don't have any effect.

Normally there is a lid on the QT that has small LED lights in, Marineland 10 Gallon lid.

What are thoughts on moving him from QT to DT? Is there risk here given the condition? DT doesn't have any fish or corals in it at this point.
 
Myxosporidian diseases significant in aquaculture include whirling disease and proliferative kidney disease of salmonids and proliferative gill disease (“hamburger gill disease”) of channel catfish. Whirling disease is caused by Myxobolus cerebralis. Fish are infected as fingerlings when the parasite infects cartilage in the vertebral column and skull, resulting in visible skeletal deformities. Affected fingerlings typically show rapid tail-chasing behavior (whirling) when startled. The disease is also sometimes called “blacktail” because the peduncle and tail may darken significantly. Recovered fish remain carriers. Adults do not show behavioral signs, but skeletal deformities associated with infection do not resolve. The disease can be prevented by purchasing uninfected breeding stock and maintaining them in an environment free of the intermediate hosts (tubifex worms). A presumptive diagnosis of whirling disease is made by detection of spores from skulls of infected fish. Diagnosis may be confirmed histologically or serologically. Whirling disease is of regulatory concern in some states

http://www.merckmanuals.com/vet/exotic_and_laboratory_animals/fish/parasitic_diseases_of_fish.html

I don't have any idea if this applies for sure, but a google search found it. Maybe take this over to the disease forum?
 
An Update.

We made the decision to move both of them over from the QT to the DT. This happened on Saturday, and I"ll say that the strange behavior has certainly reduced. He has a not of areas with the rock to swim around in and both of them are acting much like pairs and no bullying is occurring. I still see a couple of behaviors that shows there is still a problem. Twitching and once or twice he would flip, but only for a very short period.

We'll keep everyone posted, but wanted to comment on the update and the possible improvement from the QT to the DT.
 
DT is doing well, outside my bout of Cyano :(

As for the two Clowns, they seem to be doing fine. The spinner, well, he continues to spin. It is very random, but the spins are much shorter then in the QT. It does seem to exhaust him a bit, where's some times he will get into a rock area with little or no flow or just let the flow hold him up against the rock. He is eating, either by being out when I feed and he will grab a food particle and spin, or will find some on the sand bed.

We added yesterday a cleaner shrimp to the tank, so we've been watching that activity. The shrimp is very interested in the non-spinner and is also taking some food off the sand bed.

We watch the two pair and the non-spinner does seem to bully the other at times, poke at him, which some times kicks off a spin and sometimes he just pushes away.the spinner really does seem to have a neurlogical problem, but seems OK at this point.

Thanks
 
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