help with clown

[skratchiechan]

they were fine last night, I check on them this morning and I see cloudy eyes on one of two clowns.

had them about a week and a half.

water parameters

SG 35ppm
ammonia 0-.25
nitrite 0
nitrate 20 (did a pwc today 10 gallons, so hopefully it goes down)
temp 77.5

tank mates
1 o.clown
1 peppermint shrimp
1 emerald crab
2 hermits
4 n. snails
1 turbo snail

 

[mr_X]

are your test kits telling you that you have detectable ammonia in the tank? i don't know if your fish is sick or not. personally, i would just leave it be and make sure my water parameters are good. especially ammonia and nitrite. i wouldn't even bother worrying about nitrate. it's unimportant unless you are keeping difficult corals.

 

[skratchiechan]

thanks Doug. he's been swimming in the same spot for a while now. how often can I do pwc to lower the ammonia btw?

currently I have frogspawn and Xenia in my tank as far as my corals go...

 

[Magma]

if you have enough live rock in the tank you wont have ammonia at all if your tank is cycled, you will only get readings on Nitrates.

How much rock is in the tank and how long did you cycle the tank for?

 

[skratchiechan]

50 lbs of LR and had 0 nitrite and ammonia readings, so I put couple clowns in.

took about 3 1/2 weeks to cycle

does he look okay to you guys?

 

[Magma]

could be stress as well, I put my clowns into QT when I got them because there fins had translucent spots on them and turns out it was just stress.

 

[skratchiechan]

he was fine, swimming happily until today... I wonder what he's stressed about

 

[mr_X]

i don't know about the cloudy eye issue, because i've never seen it before in salt fish. i thought this was a very rare thing. apparently though, it seems to be common, as i've read multiple threads on this forum about people's fish having it. maybe i just didn't keep the fish long enough to see any issues.
meanwhile, yes- stress can and does lower the immune system and leaves fish susceptible to any number of diseases.
if in fact you have ammonia present, this is easily enough to stress a fish to the point of illness, if not kill the fish from poisoning.

water changes which are the same temperature and ph of the water you are taking out can never hurt a tank, no matter how often. i would do water changes until the ammonia was not detectable. mix large amounts of water with a heater, powerhead and/or an airstone overnight to completely mix it and level out the ph.

 

[Innovator]

It has several faded patches along with a clouded eye and with any clownfish the most reasonable diagnosis pyramid is: bacterial infection, Amyloodinium, or Brooklynella. I will venture on stress followed by a bacterial infection at this point in time and you need to perform another 25%-50% water change. Keep a close eye on it and if the patches become more widespread and/or added growth. You mention another clownfish so is it being picked on? If the conditions get worse and the cloudy eye doesn't subside you will need to medicate.