Strange ocellaris clownfish behavior

[robertsk]

Wondered if i could get some opinions.

So i bought my first fish 2x clowns 1x yellow tang and 1x purple dottyback

Tang and dottyback is doing great. Although all 4 are living in one side of the tank.

Clowns are living in the corner below overflow box, swimming mostly in place.
And the weirdest thing that they seem to be gasping?(rapidly opening mouth) but not going to surface for air(so o2 level should be ok) other fish are ok.

The tank is 100g all parameters are ok.

Is the mouth opening normal?

 

[Marchillo]

Can you give more info?

How long has the tank been setup? When did you add the fish? What are your parameters, how much rock/sand in the tank, equipment i.e powerheads etc. how did you acclimate? Did you qt the fish. Sounds like you added all 4 together so you added a decent amount of bioload to a system that didn't have any.

 

[robertsk]

Tank is 100g with 50lbs dry rock and 50lbs live rock cured, 160lbs of sand. Tank is runing for a month now, two weeks ammonia and nitrite levels are 0, nitrate 5.
30g sump with h&s 150 skimmer
Carbon/phosphate reactor.
Jebao mw15 powerheads

Fish are eating well and swimming like they shoud on day 4. Only problem that worries me is the clown behavior.

 

[Marchillo]

How did you acclimate?

So with no qt it's tough to tell. They could just be stressed. Seems like everything you did minus no qt is fine. Adding 4 fish to a system that never had fish is a tad aggressive as well, but you have a big enough system etc.

For months and months if I stared at my starry blenny he looked like he was gasping. Even the lfs owner came over once and said does the starry always gasp like that. And the answer was no only when you stare at him. A year later that fish is doing great and isn't as stressed when I look at him.

Not sure how high you are running your lights but perhaps run them at a low intensity (if you have that ability) and slowly ramp them up. Less light might help reduce the stress.

 

[Marchillo]

Also I don't think it's o2 but do you have a glass lid on the tank and are you agitating the water surface via the powerheads/ return pumps? What is the salinity at?

 

[robertsk]

Salinity is at 1.023 no lid and agitated the top with powerhead.
No qt, lfs had them tank raised abd no other symptoms appear that they could be sick with something.

So one of the clowns died(started swimming like crazy and fell on the bottom, put him in qt and the same, swap and fell down breathing heavily).

The clown had whitish mouth and just before died pooped out a long string(brownish).

Could it be that he got brook? Or just stress? They were very small.

Planing to put other clown in qt if the symptoms appear similar.

 

[Marchillo]

I would post in the disease section of the forum. Sorry for your loss. Going forward always smart to qt all fish no matter what the fish store says they do.

Good luck.

 

[Treasure Coast]

Just a heads up, it might be normal behavior. Clowns like to lay sideways by return units or overflows especially at night. At least all my bonded pairs do. So, not sure if you are familiar with their behavior. If you feed them some Brine Shrimp, they should eat hardy if they are not sick.