Clownfish treatment

[Debbie64]

About a week ago, the male half of my pair of ocellaris clowns began acting odd - odder it seems than regular clown oddness.

His better half is fine. Background-wise, I've had these clowns for a year and a half. Several months ago they began hosting in a large hairy mushroom cluster.

So, about a week ago, Ben, the sick clown, left the mushroom and exhibited the following symptoms: listlessness, disorientation, not eating and hanging out by himself in the corner of the tank. For the first couple of days he was hanging out right at the bottom of the tank. After that, he was mostly hanging around the side wall.

At first I thought he might have been stunned by an unusually strong zap from the mushroom, but now I'm thinking he is sick with something so I just moved him to a hospital tank. Every other fish is healthy and this does not look like ich. (My tank ran fallow for 12 weeks over a year ago and all fish have been QT'd.)

His color is a bit dull, he seems to have a white stringy poo and he hasn't been eating (though he swims like a nut over to where the food is when it's feeding time. It's like he wants to eat, but it's almost like he forgot how or he can't find the food or something.)

I recently added some inverts to the tank (snails, crabs), but no fish since April (lyretail anthia).

Again, all fish (yellow tang, royal gramma, clowns, anthia, lawnmower blenny, 3 chromis, 6 line) have been/are very healthy. Water is zero ammonia and trite, very low trate 2-5, PO4 0, pH 8.15 - 8.25, alk 3.31/dkh 9.30, ca 440, mag 1260.

The reason I moved him today was I finally noticed white poop (but then he's not eating) and also, his gills seem to be open more than usual, as in there's a gap there. I don't want the other fish to catch whatever it is, if it's anything. He was easy as pie to catch so that didn't stress him much.

I have meds and I'd like some advice on what this might be and what meds I should use. I have maracyn 2, Paracide-D and Praz-Tastic. Also, formalin.

I'm very attached to this little guy,

Diagnoses and ideas?

Thank you!

Edited to say I can take a pic and upload it if necessary.

 

[Debbie64]

No one? A little added info then. He's acting normal in the QT, swimming fine. It's feeding him that's the problem. I mentioned he swims over to where the food is and acts like he wants to eat, but it's almost as if he can't see the food. He also seems to be bumping into things.

Additional things: He has the smallish black bruise-like spots on his undercarriage (not black ich) associated with hosting in a non-standard host (the mushroom). (The female does as well.)

He also has some scarring that I would associate with HLLE on his first white stripe.

He's not gasping, his gills look normal at this point. Have I over reacted putting him in the hospital? I take crappy pics, but here he is in QT:

 

[sofiahkhan]

i wish i could of some help, but im new to saltwater myself, and my own clown is somewhat behaving the same, only it has white cotton like spots on its chin and in it lower lip

 

[Paul Davies]

mine too, just yesterday. I moved into a hospital tank and he spent the last 2 hrs on his side. can anybody help?

 

[StonyReefer]

The pics do not work. I would say it is probabley parasidic. White feces is usually a sign of parasites. I would treat the QT with something like ParaGuard. I had a clown a while back with brooklynella and ParaGuard cleared it up in a week or 2. I treated the fish for 2 weeks but after day 5 the signs of disease was almost if not all gone.


Sofiahkhan and Paul... Are your clowns new to the tank? Are they wild cought species. If so wild cought clowns are prone to Brooklynella which will kill the clown if left untreated. Also called Clownfish Disease.

white cotton like spots on its chin and in it lower lip

That sounds fungus.


GL guys