Inactive Clownfish

[dovakun]

My female longfin clownfish seems to be much more lethargic and breathing heavy especially compared to the male. I see her laying on the sand in the corner unless I walk by or feed. I understand that the males are a bit more aggressive eaters and he surely is but I would think the female should be a bit more active. I do not see any white spots, no discoloration or cloudy eyes and the fins look healthy. Only symptom is laying on the sand bed and the heavy breathing. The tank is a 29G standard aquarium. I did not use live rock. Instead I used dry rock and added Fritz turbo start. The tank cycled for a couple weeks before adding the fish. My current water parameters are ~1.025 salinity, 8.0 ph, .25 ammonia, .5 nitrite, and about 20ppm nitrate. Water temp is 79deg F and has been operational for about 5 weeks. I imagine there is still another few weeks to fully cycle. Nitrite did spike above 5.0ppm 1 week after adding the clowns but I did not see an ammonia spike.

So my question now is, do I pull the female out and place in a quarantine tank? (I have some API Melafix that could help if it's bacterial) Do I treat the existing tank with Melafix or other meds? (there are 8 nassarius snails for cleanup) Or do I just wait it out and see if the behavior improves?

Any suggestions is greatly appreciated.

 

[djryan2000]

current water parameters are ~1.025 salinity, 8.0 ph, .25 ammonia, .5 nitrite, and about 20ppm nitrate. wait it out and see if the behavior improves?



Any suggestions is greatly appreciated.

It's probably the ammonia and nitrite. I'd put the fish in the QT tank if that's fully cycled. You added fish too early


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[dovakun]

I have a hard time believing it's ammonia and nitrite since only one of the two is experiencing issues, and people fish cycle their tanks with clowns all the time. The QT is not a fully cycled tank, it is just a 10G aquarium that I intend to use to treat new fish being added in the future.

 

[Sk8r]

One may have gill issues, as with ich, or flukes, and people do NOT use live fish to cycle a tank these days! Your best bet is to move both fish into qt with nothing but just good clean new salt water, no rock, no sand. Keep it clean water. Change the filter pad every time you see a brown stain, and do not hesitate to do a 100% water change in that qt tank. You might add an air pump and bubbler to aid aeration in that 10 g.

 

[djryan2000]

One may have gill issues, as with ich, or flukes, and people do NOT use live fish to cycle a tank these days! Your best bet is to move both fish into qt with nothing but just good clean new salt water, no rock, no sand. Keep it clean water. Change the filter pad every time you see a brown stain, and do not hesitate to do a 100% water change in that qt tank. You might add an air pump and bubbler to aid aeration in that 10 g.

+1 to the large water changes


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[dovakun]

I'm aware that fish cycling is not being done as often these days however the LFS recommended it with clowns or damsels as long as you're using live rock or seeding the tank with bacteria. My original plan was to use ammonia with turbo start but I was unable to find any ammonia. That being said, the tank appears to almost be done cycling. Tested this morning and Nitrite is down to .25 compared to .5 from yesterday. As far as ammonia, I did a bit of experimenting. I tested new RODI salt water and fresh RODI water (making my own). The salt water shows cloudy at .25 but the fresh water shows as clear with 0. I'm using Omega Sea premium salt. Do you think that the salt I'm using is introducing ammonia or is the testing kit inaccurate? I'm using the API Saltwater master kit. I'm thinking that if the tank is almost done cycling, would it be better to let the fish recover on its own after being stressed from the nitrite spike rather than moving it and acclimating it to the QT then putting it right back in the main aquarium or still move it to the QT. I may just do 20% water changes every other day to bring down the nitrates. Thoughts?