Tilted Clown

[president89]

One of my Occelaris clowns is not acting right. She hasn't been eating, and she's staying under her tile. I think she's basically under there to keep her from floating to the surface. I did see her come out and that's what she did-floated right to the surface. She's getting really skinny. Her tankmate (male) seems to be doing just fine, eating whatever food I throw in there.

I alternate between a frozen concoction i made(fish, clams, shrimp, noori, squid) frozen mysis shrimp and the occasional bloodworms. Then I have some sinking pellets, spirulina flakes, formula two, and reef flakes.

She doesn't have any physical parasites or ich or anything like that. Heavy breathing, her orientation just seems to be tilted(not all the way on her side)

This is a FO tank 10G
Filtration-HOB power filter for a 40G that is well seeded.
Tank setup 12/1/2009
Temp is steady at 80 degrees Fahrenheit
1.022 specific gravity
The only thing i can think of high nitrate. I usually let the algae go nuts so it keeps it down. Ugly, but it works and keeps the fish from being disturbed if someone walks by.

 

[president89]

Correction, appears to be on her side... and i forgot to add rapid breathing.

 

[Bananafish]

She may have swim bladder disease. There are a lot of things that cause it, from internal parasites to bacterial or viral infections. It can sometimes be reversed. It's not usually fatal unless the fish can't eat - it will just swim funny. Anything you can do to help her eat will be good for her. Maybe giving her food directly with a forceps or turkey baster may help. If she continues to eat, she may get over this and recover at least well enough to eat on her own.

 

[president89]

I tried getting her to eat out of a set of tongs... and then leaving the food near her. No luck. Tank mate is fine. Now I have another female in another tank, doing something similiar... only this one the head is floating. Not as worried about that one. She might have swallowed some air. Not really sure what to do at this point about the one on her side.

 

[Bananafish]

I'll look in some books I have and post back tomorrow. Hope I can find something that will help. I'd try to feed her again tomorrow. Eventually, I would think she'd get hungry enough to eat.

 

[Bananafish]

I'm sorry this is really late, but I do hope it helps. According to Joyce Wilkerson's book, this sounds more like what she calls "Floating Pellet Bloat" than swim bladder. She says it's caused by feeding floating pellets, and if you stop they will recover. I have a great deal of respect for her, and her book is "the bible" on clowns. Still, I find it hard to believe it's because of floating pellets. I still think it's swim bladder inflation.

Two other references I have point to water parameters. The most important things to check according to these are your pH and nitrates. This could be caused if pH is low or if nitrates are very high. This is all I could come up with. All the best advice I could find is to deal with those two aspects through water changes and buffering, but make sure changes in pH occur slowly enough that you don't cause additional stress.

I hope you find this helpful in some way. I wish I could offer more, but that's all I could find in my books. Sadly, swim bladder disorders are not common in saltwater species, and I don't have much reference material.

Please keep us posted on how she's doing.