LFS do not quarantine. Based on time line and clownfish, I suspect brook.
Help clownfish has ich!!
- Thread starter ibrat82
- Start date
LFS do not quarantine. Based on time line and clownfish, I suspect brook.
How big is that clown? Judging by the picture I would say that fish isn't anymore than an inch long. So if he truly is that small it still may be ich. Ich looks like little grains of salt sprinkled on your fish. When he's facing you can you tell if the spots are more like bumps? Since you only have a few spots the fish may not be showing symptoms yet, I had a tang that was notorious for getting ich...and he got it bad but would hardly show symptoms , still ate like a pig and showed no signs of stress until he was covered.
Although copper is an effective way of treating ich I wouldn't reccomend using it. It can be pretty harsh on your fish and depending on what else you have in QT it could be harmful to them too. Like others have said TTM is the reccomended method. Only down fall is not everybody has a ton of extra equipment to keep switching out for ttm.
Since we're not even sure what it is yet I would say start with a freshwater dip. Get some purified water and heat it to the same temperature as your tank, I usually use distilled and pour it into a specimen cup and float it in the tank. Then I would either lower the salinity in my QT down to around 1.012 or set up a separate holding tank for both clowns, separate tank being preferred. You want to leave your display empty of all fish (fallow) for a minimum of 72 days. Hyposalinity is an effective way to treat a wider range of infections, and it is way less stressful on the fish than using any kind of medication out there. I would put a couple small artificial decorations in the holding tank to make the fish feel more safe, this could be as simple as a couple pieces of pvc pipe that he can swim thru . Lower salinity means higher O2 in the water, which if he has anything in his gills, will help. Just keep the water heated and add an air stone to keep the water oxygenated. Do about 30% w/c every couple of days to keep ammonia and other toxins down. When u do water changes bleach any decorations you have, don't use splash-less bleach as it can be harder to rinse off. This way you can observe him and see if it manifests into something more or sometimes hypo is enough to do the trick. If his condition appears to be worsening then it may be time to go back to using medication. Instant ocean has a product that covers a wide variety of infections, I forgot what it's called but when I had to use it I was able to pick it up at my local petco. Just be sure to read the box. If you have to use medication I would drip acclimate the clowns back to a higher salinity, it's not a good idea to combine hypo with medications as this can intensify some medications to the point of being harmful.
When you do the freshwater dip you can put the fish in there for up to 5 minutes but keep a close eye on him, if he starts to freak out or laying on his side or shows any kind of major stress the dip is done, u want to get him out and into qt. You can do dips daily up to 3x per day. Some people might even say more depending on the severity of the infection. The other clown you don't have to dip quite yet unless he too is showing signs of infection.
After you're clowns heal from their infection you can return them to normal salinity 1.020 - 1.025 whatever you have you're display at but you have to do it slowly to prevent shock, usually over the course of a couple days. Observe them for another 2 weeks and if all looks good and you're past that 72 day mark you can start to return everybody to your display. It is ok to leave your inverts in the display while you do your 72 day fallow period. AdvancedAquarist.com has a nice article on hyposalinity I'd suggest reading it to familiarize yourself with the concept. Good luck!
P.S. in the the mean time post the picture in the disease forum maybe someone can ID what your clown has and direct you on how to treat exactly what he has.
Although copper is an effective way of treating ich I wouldn't reccomend using it. It can be pretty harsh on your fish and depending on what else you have in QT it could be harmful to them too. Like others have said TTM is the reccomended method. Only down fall is not everybody has a ton of extra equipment to keep switching out for ttm.
Since we're not even sure what it is yet I would say start with a freshwater dip. Get some purified water and heat it to the same temperature as your tank, I usually use distilled and pour it into a specimen cup and float it in the tank. Then I would either lower the salinity in my QT down to around 1.012 or set up a separate holding tank for both clowns, separate tank being preferred. You want to leave your display empty of all fish (fallow) for a minimum of 72 days. Hyposalinity is an effective way to treat a wider range of infections, and it is way less stressful on the fish than using any kind of medication out there. I would put a couple small artificial decorations in the holding tank to make the fish feel more safe, this could be as simple as a couple pieces of pvc pipe that he can swim thru . Lower salinity means higher O2 in the water, which if he has anything in his gills, will help. Just keep the water heated and add an air stone to keep the water oxygenated. Do about 30% w/c every couple of days to keep ammonia and other toxins down. When u do water changes bleach any decorations you have, don't use splash-less bleach as it can be harder to rinse off. This way you can observe him and see if it manifests into something more or sometimes hypo is enough to do the trick. If his condition appears to be worsening then it may be time to go back to using medication. Instant ocean has a product that covers a wide variety of infections, I forgot what it's called but when I had to use it I was able to pick it up at my local petco. Just be sure to read the box. If you have to use medication I would drip acclimate the clowns back to a higher salinity, it's not a good idea to combine hypo with medications as this can intensify some medications to the point of being harmful.
When you do the freshwater dip you can put the fish in there for up to 5 minutes but keep a close eye on him, if he starts to freak out or laying on his side or shows any kind of major stress the dip is done, u want to get him out and into qt. You can do dips daily up to 3x per day. Some people might even say more depending on the severity of the infection. The other clown you don't have to dip quite yet unless he too is showing signs of infection.
After you're clowns heal from their infection you can return them to normal salinity 1.020 - 1.025 whatever you have you're display at but you have to do it slowly to prevent shock, usually over the course of a couple days. Observe them for another 2 weeks and if all looks good and you're past that 72 day mark you can start to return everybody to your display. It is ok to leave your inverts in the display while you do your 72 day fallow period. AdvancedAquarist.com has a nice article on hyposalinity I'd suggest reading it to familiarize yourself with the concept. Good luck!
P.S. in the the mean time post the picture in the disease forum maybe someone can ID what your clown has and direct you on how to treat exactly what he has.
Dkuhlmann
New member
While I agree with you about doing a FW dip on this fish I need to tell you that Hypo-salinity isn't done at 1.012, it has to be under 1.009 and never to get to 1.009 as if it does you're accomplishing nothing.
I also don't think this fish as ich and I would do a FW dip to see if the spots bail out. I would then put the fish through a 7 day treatment of PraziPro to worm it of both flukes and internal parasites.
DO NOT, treat your DT with copper. It will be absorbed by your sand and rocks and you will more than likely NEVER be able to put any inverts in your tank again as even a trace of copper will kill them.
So IMO you're best bet is to FW dip the fish then do the TTM and do Prazi for at lest one round better off with two. Prazi can be used to treat your whole tank, its safe with fish, inverts, corals and anemones.
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Oops, thought I corrected that, thanks for the catch.
