Ocellaris clownfish doing poorly, ID please?

[bondolo]

The fish has been doing poorly since Monday. It was swimming oddly in a strange corner of the tank and breathing quickly.

I suspected Ich and saw what I thought were two or three white dots. I moved the fish (and am still trying to catch the last fish in the tank) to a bare 10G QT tank. (PVC tubes for hiding places). I started treatment with Seachem ParaGuard. Today the fish looks much worse and the symptoms have changed. The fish is now extremely bloated, eyes are very noticeably protruding and appears to have swelling in the anal area. Fins are starting to lose colour. Breathing is rapid. There are no spots on the fish.

Other fish, female ocellaris, Canary wrasse and occellated dragonet (aka scooter blenny), are all fine and showing no symptoms. No fish have been introduced in 3 months. Last introduced was the dragonet which had been isolated for 10 days prior to introduction. (Would have been longer but he refuses all but live food).

QT Tank params
Temperature: 79.5F
pH : 8.2
Salinity: 1.021 SG (reduced from 1.026 over two days a cup of water at a time)

In tank sponge filter with venturi air intake, Rio 90 with venturi air intake for flow.

I haven't checked phosphates or nitrates in the QT but am doing ~20% water changes daily before dosing the ParaGuard. Until the fish issue tank had been QT for coral and only tiny amounts of food added.

Paraguard: 5ml once per day.

 

[MrTuskfish]

Does it look like he's losing skin? Skin peeling, sloughing, etc? BTW, phos and nitrates don't hurt fish. Ammonia and nitrite are important tests for fish, though; especially in a QT.

 

[bondolo]

No loss of skin that I can tell.

No detectable ammonia (just tested). I don't have a nitrite test (haven't needed it).

 

[LAKEM0NSTER]

Yea,, keep an eye on the ammonia level in the QT tank. I bought a cheapo ammonia indicator you can stick inside the tank that will show if any develops. & maybe drop the temp. a couple degrees?

If it was ich, I don't think it would be the cause of the pop-eyes,, I've heard a few times that this is some type of bacterial infection that can be helped with antibiotics...

Honestly, I wouldn't go all out with the hyposalinity, quite yet. I would just try to keep the fish in its normal conditions til the pop-eye went away. Maybe someone who has dealt with this before can add to this

 

[ofna001]

i just went through the same thing with my clown, same symptoms. i tried every med out there then someone from another forum told me to try these meds for it may be an internal parasite causing issues. i treated the qt with prazipro and formailin for the recommended amount of time on the bottles. be sure to watch ammonia and do a big water change and remove carbon before adding the prazipro. i thought for sure he was gona die, bloated not eating and swimming sideways in corner, getting tossed around from hob filter current. after treating with these meds he looks like a million bucks. It has now been 9 days since treatment. i am by no means an expert reefer yet but this worked for me, maybe someone else can add to this

 

[bondolo]

OK, the fish is still doing really poorly but alive. I'll try prazipro and formailin on the theory that it can't hurt at this point.