Clown fish turning clear!

[sqt1388]

I've had my tank for about 2 years, this is an accidental hobby because a client of my mom bought a pair of clown fish thought they were too much work and told my mom "get rid of the tank for me or I'm throwing them in the trash"

I guess I'm still pretty new to all this because until recently I just kind of checked the salt levels and feed the clowns and called it a day. My boyfriend is really into fish and reptiles so he's been helping me upgrade my tank little by little.

About a year ago my original female died and until recently I never got around to buying any new fish. I purchased 3 baby clowns (they're about a half inch long) to accompany my surviving male (now female) about 3 weeks ago and everything was great at the beginning (all four swam together in a little school) but now one of the new clowns hides in a cave all day every day to the point I thought he was dead and his body just vanished somehow.

He only comes out of the cave to grab food and then goes back into the cave and today I noticed he's turning transparent. My other three clowns are nicely colored and still swim together. I never see them nip at one another or even attack or acknowledge the loner clown when he comes out of his cave so I'm just really confused what's going on and would really appreciate some advice.

 

[Rubasu]

I'm not too sure about the clown turning transparent. But I would recommend getting rid of 2 of the smaller clowns. Once the bigger (now female) pairs with one of the smaller ones, they will kill any other clown in the tank. It's only a matter of time, unfortunately. (This is the typical scenario... I'm not saying it will happen to you, but it happens to most.)

 

[JohnnyHildo]

I'm not too sure about the clown turning transparent. But I would recommend getting rid of 2 of the smaller clowns. Once the bigger (now female) pairs with one of the smaller ones, they will kill any other clown in the tank. It's only a matter of time, unfortunately. (This is the typical scenario... I'm not saying it will happen to you, but it happens to most.)

true.
the other option is to add a bunch more so that one dominant female lives in the company of several other fish which will all remain male. basically a reverse harem. to make this work i would guess you'd need 10-12 clowns to disperse the aggression though.

 

[farfromsea]

Is it possible the fish has a Brooklynella infection? Post a pic of the fish if you can. Since that one is obviously stressed and kicked out of the clan I would suppose it would be the first to succumb to disease.

 

[lifeoffaith]

I thought you could pair two males with one female but no more unless doing a harem tank? I would definitely fish the third one out though, or he is toast.

 

[sqt1388]

Is it possible the fish has a Brooklynella infection? Post a pic of the fish if you can. Since that one is obviously stressed and kicked out of the clan I would suppose it would be the first to succumb to disease.

This is the one that looks transparent to me, originally he was just like my other which are bright orange and opaque and now he looks like this. (I'll post a picture of one of the others I got the same day after this)

Could it be the food? I've always feed them pellets ( when I was given them I rushed to a fish store and that's what they told me to feed them and I've done it ever since) but my original clowns were already bigger then these new ones but recently I've notice that the pellets are kind of big for the new ones mouth so I've been crushing some to make sure they can fit in their mouths, but I'm not sure if that's a problem because if that were true the other two would look the same thing because of malnutrition.

 

[sqt1388]

Is it possible the fish has a Brooklynella infection? Post a pic of the fish if you can. Since that one is obviously stressed and kicked out of the clan I would suppose it would be the first to succumb to disease.

This is one of the others I got the same day and he's happy healthy and swim all over the tank with the others and not at all see threw

 

[jstack]

he's the red headed stepchild and is taking all the aggression. Looks like he's sporting a nasty infection

 

[BigEZ77]

Wow, I've never seen a fish look so bad and still swimming. Almost gaunt if that's a good word. No offence, still a relative newb and haven't seen that before. Sorry to see that and good luck, I'm sure more experienced reefers will give you some great tips.

 

[sqt1388]

he's the red headed stepchild and is taking all the aggression. Looks like he's sporting a nasty infection

Any idea what it could be or what todo?

 

[CSalty]

When fish are stressed they lose their color. The stress could be from anything but in your case most likely from bullying.


SSgt Saltwater

 

[farfromsea]

I would separate the fish ASAP. Can you get a quarantine tank together for it? Petsmart is having a $1/gallon sale so you could get a little 10 gallon tank. It looks like it has a weird abrasion on its mouth, or is that black spot just irregular pigmentation. When it is separated from the other aggressive clowns hopefully you can watch it more and compare it to fish disease photos. It is hard for me to say with any certainty that it is Brooklynella and the treatment, formalin, is quite toxic to humans so I would avoid using it if possible. Perhaps once the fish is alone and feels at peace the problem will resolve on its own. If you can't get a quarantine tank maybe you can just try to give it away. Some people like to nurse fishes back to life and many people like free fish. Either way, even if you heal it I think in your size tank you would have to give it away or sell it in the end anyhow.

 

[sqt1388]

I would separate the fish ASAP. Can you get a quarantine tank together for it? Petsmart is having a $1/gallon sale so you could get a little 10 gallon tank. It looks like it has a weird abrasion on its mouth, or is that black spot just irregular pigmentation. When it is separated from the other aggressive clowns hopefully you can watch it more and compare it to fish disease photos. It is hard for me to say with any certainty that it is Brooklynella and the treatment, formalin, is quite toxic to humans so I would avoid using it if possible. Perhaps once the fish is alone and feels at peace the problem will resolve on its own. If you can't get a quarantine tank maybe you can just try to give it away. Some people like to nurse fishes back to life and many people like free fish. Either way, even if you heal it I think in your size tank you would have to give it away or sell it in the end anyhow.

Sorry about the confusion, but the discoloration/black spot by the mouth is a chunk of food he was dragging aroun when I took the picture. I didn't even think about it so sorry about the confusion. He only comes out when I feed them so he was eating at the time I took the picture, so no it's not some kind of weird infection in his mouth. (Although I still haven't ruled out him not having an infection at all)

I think I am going to separate him from the others soon but won't be able to do so until the weekend any ideas on a quick temporary solution on how to keep him away from the aggressive fish?

 

[farfromsea]

Glad it was just food haha.

A quick easy solution would be those goofy breeder mesh basket things they sell at petco/mart etc for baby fish. However, this would be cruel because they are so small. I feel like he would freak out more and get more stressed. Plus who knows the other fish might loom around the breeder basket thing and bother him.

Honestly there are only 3 days until the weekend and he should be okay in that cave...or at least if he was my fish and I had limited time that is what I would do. Better than holing him up somewhere. He's made it so far!

Some people have success reducing aggression in their tanks by rearranging the rockscape or turning down the lights but I believe this is mainly for new additions to the tank and I feel like rearranging the rockscape would eliminate his cave and he is already a weaker fish...no cave could induce attacks IMO.

 

[Bl4ckDr4g0n]

Just take 2 back to the fish store and hope the female hasnt decided shed prefer to be alone

 

[homer1475]

I thought you could pair two males with one female but no more unless doing a harem tank?

Kind of what I thought also, and am planning on doing here very shortly.

The female of my original mated pair of snowflake ocellaris went carpet surfing the other night and died, so bought a bonded pair of naked clowns that are super tiny compared to my other male. While they are going through TTM and QT at the moment, I will add them to my tank in hopes they all get along.

According to what I've read and a recommendation from my LFS who breeds clowns, since it was my female that died, my male should be just fine with another smaller male and female. We will soon see!

 

[sqt1388]

So for anyone that is interested, I'm pretty positive the "sick" fish was in fact just stressed out. I ended up buying a little ten gallon tank yesterday and giving him away to my neice. We fixed the tank up super cute and moved him over today (we let the tank acclimate for a day so that the sand and stuff could settle) and he seems to be doing pretty well. He has little places to hide but has been swimming around the tank looking pretty content for a few hours so I'm hoping he'll do well now that he's in he own tank.

 

[farfromsea]

Excellent news. Somewhat concerned that the 10 gallon would need to cycle and be fishless for some time so it can be sustainable... If I were you I would give one of the other clowns back to the fish store for credit. You have 3 now, right? Once they mature 2 of them will pair off and want to breed and get the other one out of their territory. If it were me I would do it early so I wouldn't get too attached. Unless you have a massive tank or something

 

[farfromsea]

deleted

 

[sqt1388]

Excellent news. Somewhat concerned that the 10 gallon would need to cycle and be fishless for some time so it can be sustainable... If I were you I would give one of the other clowns back to the fish store for credit. You have 3 now, right? Once they mature 2 of them will pair off and want to breed and get the other one out of their territory. If it were me I would do it early so I wouldn't get too attached. Unless you have a massive tank or something

The man at my local fish stir gave me some. Thing to make the cycle happen faster and I'm actually planning on keeping all three and when two do pair off moving the "reject" to my neices tank with the other fish. He's going strong after 48 hours so I'm feeling good about it

I actually did consider moving two out but thought it might be best to keep the stressed out fish as a loner at least for a few weeks/months so he can recover