Help with ailing clown

[FortyFour]

Hello,

I am trying to figure out what is going on with my ocellaris. It is the male of the pair. No physical signs on distress, trauma, or anything. Just rapid breathing (mouth open, gills working hard). This has been going on for 2.5 days. He isn't eating, and I can tell he his getting tired. No aggression from tankmates.

I do not have a hospital tank set up, and wouldn't know what to treat him for if I did. I caught him 1.5 days ago and gave him a FW dip, but I regret it now because I feel like I stressed the poor guy out some more. No signs of flukes or anything.

I have had the pair for over a year. They are the oldest fish in my system. No other signs of anything. I have been kinda sitting and hoping for the best, trying not to stress him out. Turned off one of my K4's so he doesn't have to work as hard. My skimmer has ben producing lots of microbubbles, so I turned it off thinking they might be affecting his ability to breathe.

Any advice?

 

[FortyFour]

Current Tank Description:

80G tall : 15G LR sump : 18G refugium with macro and 6in SB : Tunze 9010 skimmer : T5s : 2 K4's

Livestock: paired ocellaris clowns, yellow tang, lawnmower/algae blenny, 3 peppermint shrimp, CUC, + soft corals

 

[Conrad25]

Try some water changes? Weird that noone else is affected though

 

[FortyFour]

Did a small water change yesterday. Going to change out the carbon. He is looking pale, but still no signs of slime or spots.

 

[lazytaper]

I think this is my first post.

Let me begin by stating that I consider myself a beginner with saltwater tanks. I bred discus for years and have had a fish/live rock saltwater tank for about 10 years but haven't been really serious about it. I have now completely begun to focus on saltwater and no longer have a discus tank (I miss them though). I have a little 46 gallon bow that I intend on keeping with just a pair of clowns and some coral/anemone. Eventually.

The 46 tank has been setup for about 10 years but has been moved twice. It has been in its current location for about 1.5 years. I have a canister filter and no skimmer. Having had to do water changes every day if I could with the discus I consider myself a master of water quality.

I purchased two black and white ocellaris clowns about 8 months ago. One was larger than the other and was the largest in the group I purchased from. I presumed it was going to be the female. However, over time the other one outgrew that one and is clearly now the female.

The now smaller male (hopefully) clown started acting really flakey on me about 3 months ago. He was doing exactly as you described. I got really really worried when he stopped eating and would basically sit on the bottom of the tank. This went on for about 1.5 weeks. I was assuming one day I would wake up and he would have been consumed by my emerald crab.

I treated all of the clowns when I put them in the tank and my water was perfect. Nothing in the tank seemed to have problems except that one fish. I had noticed he had the white stringy poo and was hoping he would grow out of that from the initial treatment.

Eventually, I decided I had to do something or he was going to die. I purchased some prazipro assuming he had gill flukes and/or internal parasites. I started out against the recommendations of some on this site and tried to feed him with with prazipro enriched mysis. He actually started eating a little after that. It went so well that I decided to dose the entire tank. I dosed it according to the directions and am proud to say that he has taken a complete 180 is now almost back 100%.

He still has white stringy poo on occasion so I'm sure he isn't completely over whatever he had. I have been waiting to not stress the tank out before doing the follow up treatment. Now that everyone is looking good I am going to do another treatment and 7 days later follow up.




I know that's long winded. Cliff Notes. Sounds like your clown has some parasite. I would recommend Prazipro but really don't know what I am talking about. :lol2: