Help!! Sick Saddleback in QT

BOSLawGuy

New member
I got a mated pair of saddlebacks from a fellow reefer on Tuesday...
They were put in a 20G QT, along with an airstone and heater.

LR and Recordeas that were in the same tank also in the QT
Both were acclimated, and were swimming happily and eating the past 2 days.

The male is now not doing well all of a sudden...
He is almost vertical in the tank, stopped eating, and his fins look like he was shredded!?

Could it be from the ricordeas!?

I put some stress coat in there... but anyone have any other ideas?
 

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Did you see the female pick on him? Although this is normal with clowns it looks like he got the s**t beat out of him. Seperate them try garlic with his food. I doubt it was the recordeas. You may see black specks if a clown was hosting those.
 
Are you sure they are a mated pair not a bonded pair? Bonded pairs often pick on each other and is some cases it can get out of hand. From the pic and your description I can see shredding in the bottom fins, which looks much like aggression damage. The tail is hard to tell whether fin rot is occurring or not. Fin rot has whitish peach fuze on the tips of the fins. If it was fin rot your looking at a week or more for it to get that bad. You could try some melafix to help with the fins and sores.
 
I agree that the female likely beat him up. Mated pairs can become aggressive with each other after a move, it's not that uncommon IME. Once settled in hopefully aggression dies down.
 
He looked even worse this morning so they're separated... Hopefully he recovers. I've given them stress coat and melafix

:(
 
so here's what happened --- unexpected turn of events.

Male passed away, couldn't recover.

Female was 100% fine for another 24 hours... then started acting like she had no energy to swim. THEN as I was watching her, she started going into convulsions - I mean swimming across the whole tank, then nothing, repeat, repeat....then did the equivalent of passing out on the bottom of the tank!

I quickly got some water into a 5Gal bucket (from my DT) and put her in there with stress coat and some antibiotics.... She seems to start (hopefully) to be recovering but WHAT the hell could be happening in this QT!?
 
A picture or video of her would help as well. If possible of course. Is she breathing heavy?! Or showing any other symptoms? I'll look in some books to see if I can track anything down for you.
 
Something caused the water levels to spike like crazy!
.5 Ammonia
2.0 Nitrite
40 ppm Nitrate!

Recordeas are still in that QT, and seem fine, how is this possible?
 
The ammonia is your problem, get that number down immediately!!! That is enough to poison your fish.
 
Rea - Thank you! I put her into the 5G bucket overnight, with some stress coat (in water from my DT and she recovered completely (phew!) although at one point it did not look good at all.

Did a 100% water change of the QT tank and she is back in there now happily swimming and eating.
 
Make sure to monitor ammonia, and seed your qt with nitrifying bacteria if necessary. Instant ocean bio spira works well for this, as does a Seachem ammonia alert badge. Good luck!
 
I use water from my display. Not a large amount of bacteria in the water column but its better then nothing. Or you could always leave a sponge in the main display sump and when you need your qt up transfer it to the qt. Alot of bacteria will be on the sponge. Glad it all worked out for you. Keep us posted :).
 
A lot of people set up a QT and throw fish in the same day. Then the ammonia spikes and kills the fish. You need to get the biological process going, make sure to have a sponge, or a bio-wheel in your sump for a few weeks before you set up your QT tank, then put the sponge bio-wheel ect into the QT to start the biological process.
 
I agree that the female likely beat him up. Mated pairs can become aggressive with each other after a move, it's not that uncommon IME. Once settled in hopefully aggression dies down.

My female percula became aggressive with her mate after I moved them, I separated the two and the male later died of a secondary infection. They had been a spawning pair for 9 years, any idea why they become aggressive?
 
Well, just wanted to update everyone that this little Diva is still doing great - She is swimming right up to me during feeding times, and the rest is dancing around the bubbles and her hiding spots. Loving life....

Although now I do not know what to do with her - I definitely am concerned about putting her in my 75G DT since there is a perc. clown in there.....
 
I would do a full 8 + week quarantine. Sometimes ammonia will cause secondary infections that are easily treated in QT. As for fish aggression, if it's any condolence I paired my killer clownfish with a new mate successfully. As long as they're not two females I believe the aggression comes from the move/stress ie ammonia, disease etc.
 
Right but I should not really put her in my DT ... She is a saddleback, and there is a percula in my DT right now ... mixed species of clowns :-/
 
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