Help emergency

M

Marchillo

New member
just got home from a concert. Clown fish look real bad. Swimming upside down. Something is very wrong.

Starry Blenny looks fine and inverts.

Clown have a white discoloration at his mouth. Salinity is same as this morning. Ammonia and nitrite in check.

I did my normal weekly water change this morning and cleaned the canister filter.

Water was about 2 degrees colder but they were fine for all their meals until I left at 5 which was 7 hours after water change. Making emergency tank now.

Thoughts?
 
A few weird spiral things on front of tank. Look like little white worms? No new fish added. Added some cuc. That is it. Did not qt them. Gave them a bath
 
Ok so here is the update.

Got home 12:30 am from a concert. I see my female clown in top corner acting a bit unusual. I frantically try to find the male clown. After some searching I find him exhibiting strange behavior.

After a little while I feel they are not doing great. Swimming upside down, sort of struggling.

I tested my parameters this morning with everything in check. So I quickly just check ammonia (0), Nitrite (0) and sg 1.025. Same as this morning. I didn't bother with ph or nitrates which I checked this morning.

Of course I'm out of water except one bucket. So I start making water and start setting up my emergency tank. I already have 2 pj cardinals in qt (this is separate from the new ET).

So after almost 90 minutes I have everything matched up with display and emergency. By this time the clowns are acting a tad more normal but not in their usual spots. I decide Id rather be safe then sorry so I catch them and put them in. They are hiding in the corner but look better.

The larger clown seems to have discoloration around her mouth. Maybe it's always been that way and I never noticed. She was harder to catch and moved very fast trying to catch her. A good sign in my opinion.

My lights were on when I got home. I have the orbit current LEDs and they have been glitchy in the past and go one for a random hour. The blues were on when I got home and they should have been off.

Could the lights make them all crazy? If they randomly came on? Again at times the behavios was disturbing.

So I need some suggestions. It's 2:30 am and I have no medicine on hand and only the immune booster Voogle that I added in (I'm not expecting miracles).

Assume I wake up in 4 hours and they seem ok. Try feeding them? Leave them for the day? If I come home and they look good and eat well put them in the DT?

If they look bad what do I do? What type of medicine do I try? I can leave work anytime I need. But if they look ok and eat in the morning I plan on going to work

I did my normal water change this morning. Nothing unusual. Temp was a tad colder by about 2 degrees. That was 10 am. At 5 pm when I left the clowns ate like maniacs (ie pretty normal behavior). Can they overeat and get sick?

The other thing I noticed was little white spiral things on the front glass. Like 3/4. Looks almost like pieces of mysis but could be a worm. No idea how that could happen. No new fish for months and months. Did add to my cuc and added a fighting conch. Did not qt them. Just gave them a dip and in they went. That is 2-3 weeks ago.

Starry blenny, fire shirmp, and peppermint shrimp look fine. I left them in the DT.


I'm hoping my clowns were just acting uber crazy. If something is wrong Id assume it would impact the starry blenny as well.

Ok I need a couple hours of sleep. It's 2:45 am and I was exhausted when I walked in at 12:30 am.

Please post replies and any knowledge and I'll respond in a couple hours.

Thanks - Steve

Edit it's 3 am from editing this post
 
Last edited:
Are you using RO or tap water for your WC and how much water did you change?
The spiral worms sound like vermetid snails to me. Do you see a funnel-like opening with orange strands coming out?
 
So I'm up after 3.5 hours of sleep.

DT everything seems normal. Blenny is exhibiting normal behavior. Perched on a rock and staring me down as I try to locate his camouflage self.

All inverts seem normal.

Those 4 squiggly marks are in the same exact spot as last night. I just think it's something random on the tank I can scrape off. It doesn't move, it hasn't changed shaped etc.

Pjs in qt seem normal. They look like they know it's breakfast.

Clowns are in the corner of the HT and look scared $hitless. I guess that could be a normal response to being rehomed. Usual nothing bothers them though. They chase my hand when it's in the tank or go after anything. Now they are sort of swimming over one another. The little guy is moving more than the big one. I will try feeding them some flakes this morning.

They never turn down food.

I'm supposed to leave for work in an hour. What do I do?

I don't even know what to treat for if anything. All I've put in is the voogle which is an immune booster. Anything else recommended?
 
Ok not a good update. Just gave them some flakes. No attempt to eat them even after they floated down to them. Clowns are swimming a little crooked and staying at the bottom of the tank.

I'm devastated. What can I do. I don't have a TDS meter. Just the one embedded in my unit. When I made water last night it read zero like always.

Can't imagine what else it could be?

I use the same little cup for feeding and the same batch of mysis. It was a huge block the I just cut into pieces. I put some selcon on it like always.

I'm very careful to not have any soaps on my hands when going in the tank. Always wash them under hot water and dry with paper towel. I guess that's a possibility.

I tried to take pictures but they aren't working out so well and not sure how helpful they would be.

I added some prime to the ET as well.
 
Just fed my DT a small piece of flakes to check my starrys behavior. He swam right up and ate. So he is normal as assummed by how he looked. I'm stumped.

I am willing to do whatever I can to help the clownfish which includes me probably not going to work. I just don't know what to do.

The ET is a 20L. I didn't fill it up all the way. Maybe 12-14 gallons. SG on the tank is 1.025. I am running a 240g/hour Powerhead and I sponge filter providing plenty of surface agitation. I also have a couple of pieces of PVC in there that is getting blown around a bit. I had another ph running but it seems too much in their current condition.

As people wake up and settle into their Monday morningsome advise would be great. Willing to run over to the LFS for anything that could possibly help.
 
How long have you had it them? My had a slight white discoloration and died. I later realised it was brooklynella. Its common for I clowns if I remember correctly.
 
Since November. Haven't added fish since February. That's why I'm baffled. All the reading I've done I'm leaning that way. I have a call in with the lfs to see if they can make a house call to help me diagnose and treat.
 
Well you know the fish are part of the family when you take a day off from work and pay the lfs to come in for a house call for more than the price of the fish. Hope he can give me a clue.
 
You do know that marine fish do not swim on a level like freshwater fish. The curly things are harmless spionids.

Brook is a possibility: it appears as a pallor or white film, as I understand it---never have had it, so I'm not sure, but it is common among clownfish.
 
I've had these guys for 7 months and I've seen them do lots of crazy things. And yeah the swim up and down the sides a lot. But this was a little different. I'd say it wasn't crazy more like confused and labored. Maybe the light messed them up and now that I've moved them they are stressed and won't eat. There are no true visible signs that they have anything except a little discoloring around the mouth that is either new or never noticed. Even the lfs said may not be much he can diagnose without visible signs. So maybe I wasted a day and stressed the fish for no reason. And have to make sure I fix that damn light (which I thought I had).

Thanks for the reply sk8r
 
A Picture is worth a thousand words... A Video a million..

There is really no way anyone can tell you anything for sure without seeing the fish themselves. I have seen these Fish at quite strange and do so for a day or two with nothing wrong. Then i have seen them just die With no apparent reason and everything in between.....
 
I doubt it is Brook since you have had the fish since November. I am pretty sure it would have presented itself by now. Do you know if the CUC tank was on it's on system at the store? The spirals could be snail eggs.

I suppose I would watch them for the time being. My clowns do goofy swimming at times. Other than the area around the mouth do the clowns look normal to you? I am not really surprised they did not eat anything they have had a tough night. without a pic things of the top of my head could be nothing, fungal, bacterial.


http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2389659

The link has a diagnosis section in it. take a look and see if anything fits. Try to stay calm, doing something in haste may make things worse. let the clowns relax a bit in the HT. Keep us updated.
 
They are actually starting to look much better. Guy will be here in a few. Definitely worth the peace of mind. Fingers crossed everything is ok.
 
Do they look bloated at all? My male clowns would take in too much air when eating flakes and would have a lot of trouble swimming correctly and breathing hard. Had to stop feeding flakes because
Of it
 
Ok so they just left. He said no on Brook. He actually said they look good and the male was doing the mating dance and said he wouldn't be doing that if he were sick. They still didn't eat.

They noticed a film at the top of my display eventhough I have the skimmer. So we moved the ph up even further to cause more movement. I thought it was high enough.

One last thing we talked about which may be the culprit. I do my water in a bathroom that has one of those spray air freshners. I was aware of this and it's not pointed anywhere near my buckets but with the window open the breeze could have landed some of the air fresher into the bucket of water I used for the water change. I have moved that air freshener out of the bathroom so it's not an issue and threw away all the water I made today.

I have carbon running in my system so he is guessing it has filtered out. Not sure this is the answer but something I have ruled out in the future. I would have thought it would impact my starry as well who seems fine still.

I'll update with progress. Thanks for the tips and suggestions.
 
Martini5788 said:
Do they look bloated at all? My male clowns would take in too much air when eating flakes and would have a lot of trouble swimming correctly and breathing hard. Had to stop feeding flakes because
Of it
Click to expand...

They don't but they did eat like crazy yesterday. I fed them earlier than normal bc we had to go out. I may have contaminated that batch of food. The starry are only a couple pieces and they are a ton. I am always super careful but I'll be even more careful going forward.
 
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