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Help, my Clown Fish are in trouble


John Freas

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I’m seriously worried about my pair of clownfish.  I got them a little over a year ago when the tank was new.  For that time they were always active, especially at dinner time.  The feeding routine hasn’t changed, nor has the food (LRS Fish Frenzy). Up until now the male would always come over and eagerly take food from my fingers.  About a week ago the female stopped coming to the feeding area and now the male has too.   I’ve been worried but hoped that they were eating food floating by, as their appetites have always been good.  Today I found the female stuck to the bottom of my Vertex fan, still alive.  I freed her, but she looks weak and I’m terribly afraid that there’s something wrong and the pair are going to die.  The only thing that changed recently was the addition of a Foxface to the tank. He leaves them alone though and I can’t think of any other reason that they would be behaving this way.

 

Any ideas are welcome.  These fish are the family favorites and losing them would be awful, especially to something like starvation.  What do you all think?  What should I do? 

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How is the oxygen exchange in the tank?  Surface area have enough agitation...can you add an air stone in the tank nearest where they have been staying?

I know you have been working on deducting nitrates but it has been a gradual process over the last few months.  This should affect their appetite or swimming patterns though.

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I just checked parameters.  Ammonia and Nitrites are zero, nitrates are around 10 according to Salifert.  API looks like 10-20 and we’re due for a water change so that’s the highest they’ve been in a couple of weeks.  PH is above 8 but it always is, as that’s what comes  out of the tap.  Flow is unchanged from when we got them a year or so ago.  We added the vertex around six months ago and it’s been running fast enough to be annoying to the fish. 

She’s pale and breathing heavily.  She’s swimming but weak.

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She died today.  Not surprising given her condition, but I’m pretty bummed.  I notice that her gills are red, though I don’t know how to interpret that.  I’ve just dosed the tank with PraziPro.  It says to do a big water change first but I don’t have water made up and it takes time to produce fifty gallons of RO salt water and I don’t want to wait.  I figure I’ll start with this, then do a water change as soon as practical and then dose a second time.  I lost a Firefish a week ago without warning.  I didn’t make a connection until now but I’m afraid something got into the tank.  I’ve attached a photo for any post mortem that you might want to do.  I’m always open to advice especially since I don’t know what I’m dealing with.

18165A7A-E306-4E22-8472-74A2D0E5D1C8.jpeg

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  • 1 month later...
On 2/4/2019 at 4:47 PM, John Freas said:

She died today.  Not surprising given her condition, but I’m pretty bummed.  I notice that her gills are red, though I don’t know how to interpret that.  I’ve just dosed the tank with PraziPro.  It says to do a big water change first but I don’t have water made up and it takes time to produce fifty gallons of RO salt water and I don’t want to wait.  I figure I’ll start with this, then do a water change as soon as practical and then dose a second time.  I lost a Firefish a week ago without warning.  I didn’t make a connection until now but I’m afraid something got into the tank.  I’ve attached a photo for any post mortem that you might want to do.  I’m always open to advice especially since I don’t know what I’m dealing with.

18165A7A-E306-4E22-8472-74A2D0E5D1C8.jpeg

It always hard to ID post Mortem, and redness shows up quickly.  

Did you ever see any spots or “dusting” on the fish? Heavy breathing? Hiding from light? Swimming in to powerheads? Flashing? Scratching? Cryptic behavior? Twitching? 

How long ago did you add the foxface?

Foxface have very thick slime coats so they’re often Newley impervious to all but the nastiest parasite afflictions.

Sorry for your loss :(

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  • 1 month later...

Thank you.

 

She didn’t have any symptoms except that she stopped coming out for food.  She didn’t hide, but would stay in her corner.  I’ve slowly lost other fish since then, most recent was the foxface.  He had been introduced about a week or two before I lost the clown.  

The tank is slowly dying and I’ve had enough.  I want to try to save the few creatures I have left. 

 

PLEASE COME TAKE MY FISH!

 

1 Oscelaris clown

1 Hawkfish

1 beautiful 2” red and white striped shrimp who is completely awesome 

1 African starfish

possible conch and snails plus a large pile of live rock covered with coralline algae.

 

I have to caution that I’ve struggled with Cyanobacteria and it’s back.

 

Everything in the tank is free to a good home.  The rest is selling at best offer to carry away and will be listed in a separate post.  I just want to get my survivors to safety.

 

Please come and take them!

 

email: John dot Freas at gmail dot com

phone eight one two, three five zero, six six four three.

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John, 

I hate to hear you are leaving the hobby after the investment you have already made.  Have you thought about investing in a small tank - 20 or 30 gallons for quarantine/treatment?  The fish you have remaining are most likely already infected so whoever takes them will not be able to put them in their tank until they go through a quarantine/treatment process.  I know this is extremely frustrating and we have had a couple other members of our club lose their live stock due to an infected fish.  The clean up crew should be fine including the starfish and shrimp.  I would take them but I have had issues with my tank recently that I am dealing with and Marcia would shoot me if I take on another project at this time.

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14 hours ago, PetesFolly said:

John, 

I hate to hear you are leaving the hobby after the investment you have already made.  Have you thought about investing in a small tank - 20 or 30 gallons for quarantine/treatment?  The fish you have remaining are most likely already infected so whoever takes them will not be able to put them in their tank until they go through a quarantine/treatment process.  I know this is extremely frustrating and we have had a couple other members of our club lose their live stock due to an infected fish.  The clean up crew should be fine including the starfish and shrimp.  I would take them but I have had issues with my tank recently that I am dealing with and Marcia would shoot me if I take on another project at this time.

I’ve doubled down on this more than once already.  I believed that it was easier than it is and even if the tank was healthy I can’t keep it that way with more than a few fish.  What was intended to be a slowly growing population in a FOWLER tank has turned out to be a large box of wet rocks with a very few things swimming around, occasionally disappearing into the rock pile never to be seen again.  I’m just over it.  I’m exhausted and I just want it to be over, but I owe it to my survivors to find them a safe place. 

I don’t know what happened to the others as it occurred slowly over weeks and months.  Heck I don’t know if I’ve just not fed them enough!  They get fed daily, LRS Fish Frenzy, about a small fingernail sized piece and that spreads around enough that it seems like more than enough.  The shrimp hasn’t had any trouble, he’s tripled in size since I got him a year or so ago.

Certainly quarantine is advised for anyone taking in unfamiliar fish, but I honestly don’t know whether this is a disease or something else; there are no outward symptoms except they suddenly go into hiding and die.  I never found the foxface, he’s deep in the rocks somewhere, but the water has become a little cloudy and I suspect it’s because of him.

I have no desire to go on with this.  I’ve had zero success after hours and hours, and thousands of dollars.  I need to be done.  I just want to find a home for these fish.  Heck I’ll pay you to take them.

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On 5/4/2019 at 12:24 PM, John Freas said:

I’ve doubled down on this more than once already.  I believed that it was easier than it is and even if the tank was healthy I can’t keep it that way with more than a few fish.  What was intended to be a slowly growing population in a FOWLER tank has turned out to be a large box of wet rocks with a very few things swimming around, occasionally disappearing into the rock pile never to be seen again.  I’m just over it.  I’m exhausted and I just want it to be over, but I owe it to my survivors to find them a safe place. 

I don’t know what happened to the others as it occurred slowly over weeks and months.  Heck I don’t know if I’ve just not fed them enough!  They get fed daily, LRS Fish Frenzy, about a small fingernail sized piece and that spreads around enough that it seems like more than enough.  The shrimp hasn’t had any trouble, he’s tripled in size since I got him a year or so ago.

Certainly quarantine is advised for anyone taking in unfamiliar fish, but I honestly don’t know whether this is a disease or something else; there are no outward symptoms except they suddenly go into hiding and die.  I never found the foxface, he’s deep in the rocks somewhere, but the water has become a little cloudy and I suspect it’s because of him.

I have no desire to go on with this.  I’ve had zero success after hours and hours, and thousands of dollars.  I need to be done.  I just want to find a home for these fish.  Heck I’ll pay you to take them.

Well, I can certainly understand and appreciate that.  I travel a lot and have had many set backs as well.  I recently thought I was at the end of the road with this hobby as well.   Almost 4 weeks later and my house still smells like burnt plastic. Anyways, I hope somebody can take the fish for you.  I will bring it up at the club meeting tomorrow and see if there are any takers.  Another option is that you can reach out to Modern Aquatix, The Reef, Central Indiana Aquatics, or Premium Aquatics and see if they will buy or take your live rock, fish, inverts, etc.

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So strange; I replied to this a week ago but it’s not here...

Yes, Gonzo620 kindly adopted my fish.  He also provided an assessment of my setup and believes that I simply got a disease in the tank which needs to be cleaned up.  His prescription is to leave the tank fallow and let whatever’s in it to run it’s course, then step back in gradually.  I’m torn because I do want to keep fish but am so tired of the process.  I am going to give it another chance though.  We’ll see what the fall brings.

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I'm glad he was able too offer some advice.  Unfortunately, I am still learning as well so I can't offer any substantial advice.  Luckily, we have some very knowledgeable people in the club.  Hopefully, whatever was causing the issues will work its way out of your system.  Tanknovice had to do the same a couple of months back.

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