Completely stumped, need help

[traveller7]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9965634#post9965634 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by JohnnyW
I'm not the most experienced person around, but I would think that the other fish in the tank would show some sort of symptoms if a disease is present, wouldn't they?

It is quite amazing how some species are susceptible to very specfic ailments and seemingly ignore other diseases while everything in the tank dies around them. Reports indicate fish building up immunity and tolerance to some ailments.

Diagnosis is tough at this point, just assume a bug is in there, and avoid adding new livestock for a few weeks/months to let everything settle out recover, etc.

Best of luck.

 

[wawruck]

What gets me is that the tang is fine. I thought tangs are the ones to pick something up first. Sorry intro needed, I am JohnnyW's wife So I have also been going through this strange clown saga.

 

[traveller7]

Hi Liz

Yellow tangs are not really magnets for anything other then black spot, which they seem to get while other fish seem unaffected.

Everything has it's Achilles heel, unfortunately

 

[Lubu]

I read on varies Asian forums that the quality of WC clowns has came down a lot.
FWIW in Asian countries it’s a common practice to use poisons (especially KCN) to catch fish;

in the picture the diver is holding a bottle of CYANIDE compound to daze the fish and the other scoop them up. After the fish is caught, some will die quickly, some will have a long agonizing death, few will survive. If your clown looks fine but it’s having white feces, more than likely it’s a poisoned fish instead of internal bacteria.

My only advice to you is: Buy tank breed. It’s more expensive, but it sure as hell worth your money and heartbreaks.

 

[Slakker]

I'm sure not all asian countries use poison to capture fish. Also, I was under the impression that the use of toxins to catch fish was becoming less common, not more.

 

[JohnnyW]

I had heard of some collection companys using cyanide like that but had never seen a picture of it. Some people amaze me with how careless, or should I say ruthless, they are just to make a quick buck.

Oh well. on a different note and way off my original topic, I think back to some of the behavior that my green chromis pair was up to a few weeks back. It appeared to me that they were nipping at the GSMs that were in there with ich. They would swim up every few minutes and take a quick bite at the GSMs. After reading some other threads on here, I wonder if they were trying to assist the clowns and were acting as a cleaner. I had never considered this until I read the other post recently.

 

[traveller7]

I am not aware of chromis cleaning behaviors and never saw such with mine over the years. More likely just a weak fish getting pushed off the hunting ground.

 

[Amphiprion]

I have observed this with many fish that don't normally "clean." I doubt it is something you would encounter very often, if at all, in the wild, though.