!urgent!!alert!HELP!!!!!!!female maroon very sick

[CLAMps]

PLEAS READ ENTIRE POST IF YOU KNOW MUCH ABOUT CLOWNS
Background first...
i have had my female maroon about 5 years and she has always been one of the toughest fish i have ever had,so tough that 4 yearss ago when i broke my back i was in hospital 3 weeks came back to my reef looking like a bomb went off, and there was my female(gertrude) and her male still alive, and looking fine, after evrything else had died. So she is very tough.
well about 5 months ago her mate got squashed by a falling rock at night (talk about bad luck),i gave her 5 months before i tried to introduce another male. so she was in her dedicated tank all alone and we got close, so close that she would swim up and around my fingers and give me tiny nips that you can tell is a sign of affection(very soft).
so i get a male dun dun duhh....now i have done many pairings in the past so im no rookie.went got one from my guy...he said when i was paying, that the fish wasent hard to catch. so on my way home i was allready less than happy about her new mate.
i took my time with the introductions like i allways do and im allways extra carefull with maroons. well she (as they allways do)went and gave him a few bites to establish domanince, and he died, very fast . i took him back and got an exchange ,
this clown looked much better from the startduring thier sepperated introduction he was doing his submisive quiver in his seperate "room"and the first face to face went great and gertrude had a new man!!!
Its been a week since all this.

Now the emergency!!!!!!!
on the fifth dayshe started acting wierd, it was not very notticable at first but i could tell.

day six checked levels and everything is within limits...
did water change..and kept my fingers crossed..no help

day seven and she is getting worse, not eatin very well in 3 days,she lays close to the bottom she`s upright but very tired looking and she is breathing hard, the new man of the house looks fine(new male)very energetic hungry and happy,sort of, he has allready bonded with her and he somtimes stays with her on bottom till he gets bored.
she has no visable signs of damage or illness her color has faded abit,but not much
she still gets excited to see me and trys to come up to surface but cant make it all the way up...
only thing i can figgure is she caught somthing from male#1 through phisical contact (when she nipped him) but i cant figgure what it is, what ever it is, it seems to have an incubation of about 5 days
only thing i havent tried is a freshwater dip--only because my results with doing freshwater dips have somtimes had the reverse happen and they get worse and gertude is very special to all of us my wife and two young sons love her too,, help us!!!

Ok so this is what i need:
any ideas on what this is,
if you think a dip will help (it seems like parisite so im thinking dip) but im scared cuz she means so much to everybody
your results from past freshwater dips and the length of time you dipped for


PLEASE HELP IF YOU CAN
PLease dont ask me to list all my paramiters, i ran my own aquarium maintenace company so when i say everything is normal, you can trust me, iv had her for five years so i musta been doing somthing right
let me rephrase everything is normal, EXCEPT GERTRUDE....
PLEASE HELP SAVE Gerti
I am sorry this turned into such a long post but gerti is worth it, and i wanted each of you to have the full picture
CLAMps

p.s. my wife read this before i posted and started crying...

 

[Sk8r]

I understand about Gerti. I wish I had a good answer about clown physiology, though she IS female and should stay female---so that's not going on.
The disease I would most suspect is brook, but try this also in the disease forum and the reef fishes forum and see if RC can put heads together and come up with a recommendation.
If you move her for treatment in qt, I would take her new guy with her, for one thing because once they have started pairing i wouldn't break that up, and for another because he may be exposed, too.
See if we can come up with a diagnosis. I believe you that your water is ok and that this is something going on with Gerti...in the absence of the other fish showing problems [yet], it's got to be something medical, I'd just about bet.

 

[CLAMps]

sk8r,
thanks for the fast response.
yes it does act like a medical prob. the new male is still fine and he(MALE#1) came from the same tank in the fish store AS (MALE#2) so her new mate has been exposed to the water of male#1 even longer than gerti.wich led me to conclude that she got it from biting the other fish(like maybe it can only spead through fresh open wounds) i have no data to back that up yet, but the hypothisis is a sound one. hope we can nail this thing down before it nails down gerti....

CLAMps.

 

[traveller7]

Re: !urgent!!alert!HELP!!!!!!!female maroon very sick

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11857491#post11857491 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by CLAMps
on the fifth dayshe started acting wierd, it was not very notticable at first but i could tell.

day six checked levels and everything is within limits...
did water change..and kept my fingers crossed..no help

day seven and she is getting worse, not eatin very well in 3 days,she lays close to the bottom she`s upright but very tired looking and she is breathing hard

It sounds like parasites, and the time line follows.

Freshwater dip is unlikely to do much to cure them, but it may assist with narrowing down the specific bug. Amyloo, Brook, or Crypto are all possibilites.

Could be other issues as well, IME large clowns are more likely to be effected by rising ammonia. Are your test reagents old?

Best bet is to post a picture, gather some meds(copper, formalin,hydrogen peroxide), and set up a hospital tank.

More details of the day 5 behavior would be helpful as well. Certain bugs trigger certain behaviors.

 

[reefman13]

Yeah, this is almost certainly a parasitic infection of some kind, and she probably will not last to next weekend if something isn't done...unfortunately. I am not going to question parameters at all especially if the other clown is happy and fine. The only bad thing about him, is that he is probably the instigator of bringing the parasite into the system from where ever you got him.

I am going to agree. Set up a hospital tank, SAT. Prepare some new SW to do some W/C. Then from the water you have taken out of the established systems, put that into the hospital tank. Then take out some of the old filter media, replace it in the other systems (you are probably a pro at), and place it in a HOB filter that you have already placed on the hospital tank. Let it run for an hour, and place a few pieces of PVC in the tank for hiding. Then while you are waiting for the tank to settle down, run out to the LFS and by pretty much every dip, copper, and formalin medication and bring it home. Then be prepared for a presidents weekend of being a fish doctor. Follow the instructions on the box of the meds as best to your ability and let us know how it goes.

I am going to do a quick google search (I remember I found a good link) and try to see what I can find out, and possibly give you a more specific diagnosis to the problem.

 

[CLAMps]

everyone THANK YOU
this is why reefcentral is so special, people who dont even know you taking time out of thier day to reserch your probs.
she is still the same but with all the help im starting to feel better,
CLAMps

 

[traveller7]

These are the treatment regimens I follow:
http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/fishdiseases.html

I would prepare for all, but your best bet is post a picture ASAP.

 

[reefman13]

Hopefully some of these will help:

http://www.liveaquaria.com/general/general.cfm?general_pagesid=78

http://www.nosickfish.com/diseases.php

HTH

 

[CLAMps]

well it doesnt look to good,i found what i think it is, thanks to everyones help
www.nosickfish.com/diseases.php?disease=16#
Fish tuberculosis, wasting disease
Disease caused by a bacterium that is transferred either by ingestion of infected material or via open wounds.

www.saltwater-aquarium-online-guide.com/diseases.html
Fish tuberculosis, wasting disease
Causes
Mycobacterium bacteria

Symptoms
There’s really no external sign for this kind. If your fish looks fine from the outside appearance and looks healthy, it will be hard to recognize if it is internally infected.

Fish that are infected though may live a year or more. Skin lesions, emaciation, labored breathing, scale loss, frayed fins and loss of appetite are all signs of this infection. Unfortunately, by the time these symptoms are recognized, it is probably too late to save the fish.

Treatment
This bacteria are transmitted orally through raw infected fish flesh, detritus, and feces of the infected fish. They can also infect skin wounds and lesions.

The best treatment is prevention. Try not to feed raw fish and shellfish to your saltwater fish. Antibiotics, including kanamycin, erythromycin, and streptomycin, can be used.

let me know if any1 knows somthing i can do with houshold stuff i would be in your debt because i dont think she is gunna make it to monday

thanks again every1,
CLAMps

 

[traveller7]

IME, your description of day 5 and day 6 do not support the proposed diagnosis. It is not fish tuberculosis. It is not a primary bacterial or a primary fungal infection.

If you would like to post a picture or more details regarding the "weird" behavior day 5, maybe we can help isolate the issue.

 

[CLAMps]

i know and understand what your saying, it acted like a parasite
but i cant find any parasite that matches all these symptims and thats when i had an idea. its very out there so bear with me. could this be some form of "parasidic bacteria" where it is a parasite in bacterium form
just seemed to close not to be it, loss of color, low food intake, biting of odd acting fish,
and when i said "acting wierd" i ment just not doing her normal rutine. she showed less intrest in all things, and seemed lathargic,
im still looking into it though so keep them coming guys, anything we find out might help the next fish if we cant "save gerti"
CLAMps

 

[traveller7]

Before inventing a new bug, please provide information which excludes the afore mentioned parasites.

Proper action would be to place the clown in isolation, lower the specific gravity into the hypo range, and observe for changes. Even if the pathogen is unknown, proper reduction of SG provides benefits to sick fish.