Clownfish Problems, Pics, Not dial-up friendly

[JohnnyW]

At the moment I have several fish including 2 clowns in a QT tank. After they were placed in the QT, they initially showed signs of ich, and were treated successfully. The ich is gone, but now the smaller clown has what looks like pop-eye to me.

One of his eyes is twice the size of the other eye. It isn't clouded over at all. He was netted at the LFS, but hasn't been netted since. He has been in QT for about 2 weeks now. I can't get a good picture at the moment, but may be able to tomorrow.

Have been performing regular water changes in the QT. There is a sponge filter, a penguin 550, and an airstone, along with several pieces of PVC in the QT tank.

Both clowns seem to be eating fine during daily feedings. They have taken to one of the PVC "T" joints and stay right in that area most of the time, but they swim at all levels of the QT during the day but never straying to far from their PVC joint.

What do y'all think about this? Anything I can do for him? The larger of the pair isn't showing any signs of this, but I will get pics of both tomorrow hopefully.

Thanks.

 

[phender]

In my experience, as long as it is well fed and has clean water, the condition will go away in a couple days to a week. I have had it happen to an orange skunk, akindynos, and two different sebae clowns. I all cases it fixed itself.
Clowns in the saddleback complex (saddleback, true sebae, and Latezonatus) seem to be prone to pop-eye that will appear and then disappear several times over the course of their lives.

 

[Toddrtrex]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10014069#post10014069 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by phender
Clowns in the saddleback complex (saddleback, true sebae, and Latezonatus) seem to be prone to pop-eye that will appear and then disappear several times over the course of their lives.

Exactly, back when I had my pair of saddlebacks, my female would get it every 6 months or so -- no reason that I could tell, and it would always go away on its own about a week later.

 

[JohnnyW]

Thanks. These two are ocerallis clowns.
I just did a water change on the QT today, and the water parameters are as follows:
Nitrates: 0
Nitrites: .5
Ammonia: 0 - 0.5
Phosphates: 0
Calcium: about 450
PH: 8.2 - 8.3
Temp: 80.5
SG: 1.021
Salinity: 29%

 

[JohnnyW]

Right now, there is the 2 Occ. Clowns, 2 PJ cardinals, a small blue tang, and a small yellow tang in the QT. I am going to try and get a few pictures of some of the fish today before I turn all the lights out, but it is pretty hard to get good pics of the fish that hang out in the PVC quite a bit. Hopefully I can get a couple of good ones so that you can see what is up on the fish.
It almost looks like the Ich infestation has returned to the QT tank, as the yellow tang and the clowns both appear to have a few white specks or something on them. It is hard to tell on the cardinals, and I haven't gotten a good look at the blue tang today.
Will post again after getting some pictures.

 

[Bebo77]

i find that it comes with stress and or poor water quality...

 

[JohnnyW]

pictures

pictures

 

[JohnnyW]

 

[JohnnyW]

And of course... now that I go back and look at these pictures, I can't see anything remotely close to what I was seeing earlier. In fact, by the pictures, it almost seems like the smaller clowns eye has gotten back closer to normal.

 

[JohnnyW]

His left eye, your right side. You can tell that it is puffed up more than his right eye.

Once again, you can see him right up at the glass where his left eye is swollen up. The larger of the pair is in the background for a little comparison.

You can't see any white spots or film or anything on any of the fish right now, but we shall see what tomorrow brings. I will probably do another small water change on the QT to keep the water good.

 

[phender]

Don't be surprized if it gets worse before it gets better. My fish have had it so bad that most of the eye seemed out of the socket. My akindynos actually had an additional gas bubble over the eye the same size as the popped our eye. In all cases it went away by itself.

 

[JohnnyW]

Good to know that it may take care of itself. Is there anything that you did for yours to aid it in healing? I know that melafix or pimafix claims that it can help with popeye, but would this be a waist of my time?

Hopefully they get better so they can be transferred back into the display tank. There may have been a case of brook in the display and three pairs of clowns were claimed over a month and a half, so everything came out of that tank and into quarantine along with some new arrivals. Glad that we now have a QT set up, we will probably keep it set up from now on, just in case.

 

[JohnnyW]

Ok, pop-eye cleared up on the little guy, there are no obvious ich parasites on them, but now I am faced with a new problem.

On the male, there are gray patches on the white stripes. The most visible is on his front stripe. I can't tell if there are spots on his orange also because of lack of great lighting on the QT tank. The gray patches appear to be a little fuzzy, but not completely sure. The only way I can figure to get a decent picture would be to remove him from the QT in a clear container and bring the container to a brighter room in the house. Any ideas of what this could be before I attempt to remove him from QT just to take a picture?

 

[MimicTang]

Could be brook... Get some freshwater with the same temp and ph as your qt. Yes FREshwater. Leave him in there for 15min he's gonna look like he's dying or really ****ed. Then after 15mins remove him WITHOUT any of the freshwater and place him back in QT.
Also drop your QT to 1.0085-1.009 salinity. I've have entire tanks of fish at this salinity with zero issue. I even have QT'd tangs in hypo.

 

[JohnnyW]

The QT was treated with a mixture of Melachite green and Formalin twice (2 three day cycles, water change + 24hours in between). They have been in QT for 2 weeks now, and there has been no sign of brook until now. So, naturally, I am really confused about what it could be. Nowhere around here carries the 37% formalin solution, and The only other thing close to a med that I have sitting around is some melafix.

For the freshwater dip, would you use tap water or RO/DI water. I know how to adjust the PH with baking soda, although without a PH probe it is kind of tricky to get it just right. Right now, the salinity of the QT is right about 1.015-1.018 as I have started to gradually bring it down over the course of a few days.

I want to try and get the little guy healthy again as the female with him has none of these gray spots at all and he has been having problems since the get-go.

 

[MimicTang]

ro/di would be better no salt is key.

Dont trust chemical to much they could be old an expired.

Physic ie low salinity on an parasite doesn't expire =)

 

[traveller7]

I am a big fan of running 1.009 hypo if there is any suspicion of ich, in a barebottom invertless environment it is only a test of fish keeper patience.

Malachite and formalin at the dose obtained in the prepackaged meds have not worked wonders for me either. Since the yellow tang was added a bit after the other fish, it may have actually brought ich into the QT environment after the meds have lost effectiveness. Not sure of the timeline of events.

Bottom line: if you suspect ich, head down to hypo over the next few days. Set up a large water change reserve at 1.009 and use it to bring the water down to the target while helping to reduce the ammonia, nitrites, etc.

Regarding the grey patches, it could be bacterial on top of wounds; or it could be brook which we suspected in the earlier incidents. This is a much larger package then most of us require, but:
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Product/Prod_Display.cfm?pcatid=4769&N=2004+113016

 

[JohnnyW]

Ok, so going to hypo it is. Still not sure if it is ich or not, as the other clown, the two tangs, and the cardinals aren't showing it at all. I didn't start treatment on the qt before until I finally got the yellow in the qt. He was a big pain in the butt as Scott probably laughed at me about before. Had to take every single rock and coral out of the tank to catch him, and it still took me an hour.
I got a real close look at him earlier though, and I am not sure quite how to describe it. I am going to see if the couple pics I took came out close to in focus and post them up. Looked like a grayish fuzz over his front stripe and a little of the orange.
Scott, I am not too sure on the brook this time, as last time the clowns died within about 3 to 4 days. Learned our lesson regarding QT for sure though. These two clowns have been in QT for about two weeks and have been kicking strong for the most part. The male has just been a problem child with one issue after another. First it was possibly brook, then he for sure had ich, then he had a pop-eye, now whatever this is. I hope I can try and get it resolved within the next 9 to 10 days, otherwise my wife is going to be highly irate as she tries to manage 3 kids and a QT while I am off playing GI Joe in the giant sandbox.

 

[JohnnyW]

Also, is there a really good method for how fast and how exactly to go down to hypo? Possibly a link or an instructional thread somewhere? Searching for hypo brings up a whole lotta links and not a lotta instructions.

 

[MimicTang]

You can hypo animals in a day.

I bought a scopas an in 30mins he was in 1.0085 from the LFS.

Better to hypo EVERYONE then in a week posting a thread how everyone passed. Brook may not be what ends up killing any of your fish. It just happens to leave them open to 2ndary infections which do them in.

Brook, Ich and Amy all drain blood from fish. Thus leaving them to weak to fight infections.