New clownfish sick?

[Tumbleweed4829]

I just bought a pair of clownfish Thursday. One of them looks dull in color, with grey across his back, and all his fins are flat against his body. The other clownfish looks fine and seems to bully him. They keep doing the whole seizure looking thing. He is eating but the other fish (flame angel & other clown) are more aggressive when feeding so he hangs back and just gets what floats his way. Is he sick?

 

[SeanMonster]

Does it have little white spots all over it's body?

 

[melosu58]

What are your water test results so we can rule that out?

 

[Tumbleweed4829]

My water test are: pH - 8.1 Ammonia - 0 Nitrites - 0 & Nitrates - 10.

He did not have any white spots this morning but tonight I do notice some. I am guessing this is ich. It doesn't look like the other clown or the flame angel has any spots. He is still eating and swimming about. But he really does look bad....very pale and clamping his fins.

What do I do? I don't have a QT and don't have the ability to go out and get a tank and accessories tonight. Tomorrow I can...what do I need to get? I have an extra heater but that is all. Plus isn't it already too late? Doesn't it take time to set up a QT? It has to cycle and all right? And isn't the ich now in my tank? And being that I have inverts and LR I can't treat for ich in the tank right? I'm so confused. Can someone please advise me?

 

[Tumbleweed4829]

Oh also I don't see him rapid breathing or scratching himself against rocks....yet.

 

[crister13]

Yes the ich is in your tank. If you don't have corals, you can actually hypo the tank. You can drop the salinity to 1.008 in your tank. Leave it for 3 weeks after all spots on the fish are gone. Your rock and sand will die, so you can keep some in a bucket with a power head and change water every so often. You could also set up a quarantine for the rock some sand and the corals you have. If you put a filter pad from your tank into the quarantines filter you won't go through much of a cycle at all. There is a lot of bacteria on the pad or sponge.

 

[Leighton79]

I don't think it will last that long, that funny colour looks to me like the slime coat deteriorating, I've seen it before.

I'll give it 48 hours tops I'm afraid.

 

[Tumbleweed4829]

Slime coat deteriorating? Does that mean it isn't ich or is that part of it? Is there anything I can do?

Some weird stuff was happening last night and maybe I'm seeing more than is reality but my sick clown was on the bottom of the tank looking really bad. All of a sudden he goes limp and looks dead...out come the peppermint shrimp and grabs him and starts pulling him into the rocks. I jumped up and turned on the lights and the fish started swimming again. Weird.

Then I noticed the emerald crab and the cleaner shrimp come over. The emerald crab hovered around the same area as the fish going back and forth around the bottom of the tank where the sick clown was. The healthy clown actually looked like he was helping the sick clown swim up. Then the healthy one every now and then would bump the sick one...almost like he was saying "hey! keep trying!" Am I reading more into this than is really happening?

Also the cleaner shrimp looked like it attacked the sick clown but I'm guessing he was trying to clean him?

Does tank mates know when a fish is sick? They just all seemed to hover around.

Anyway, I expected that by morning the clown would be dead but surprise surprise he is still alive and actually swimming around and eating. He doesn't look like he has any spots on him this morning but he is still pale looking. I'm not getting my hopes up that he will survive I just hope he does somehow.

 

[carey]

Good luck, I hope your clown makes it.

The other possibilty is brooklynella, or clown fish disease. You can google that for more information.

 

[Tumbleweed4829]

I really can't tell which it is...ich or brooklynella. So I have no idea what to do about it! I really don't want to put him in more distress than he is already in. He seems to be looking better but that maybe just my wishful thinking.

 

[Tumbleweed4829]

Well my clown fish is still hanging on. Today he looks better and his fins are no longer clamped and his color is getting better. I'm wondering if it was truly that he was just pretty stressed from being shipped and then being moved to my tank. We will see...