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[New2Salt]

Ok, I really really wish I had read this forum before purchasing my last two fish, they are a mated pair of Maroon Clownfish, they were active and lively and loved to eat the first couple days, well the female was, the male ate a little bit, but he's a small fish compared to her. Anyways, she hasn't eaten since yesterday, she seems to have one cloudy eye this morning and has like a white film on her, she isn't swimming weird but doesn't roam around the tank like she used to, breathing doesn't seem to be hard either. He on the other hand doesn't have any white film but swims in one place and kind of to the side. Our problem if it is ich we have snails, hermit crabs, a green sea star and two scooter blennies and 2 cleaner shrimp.
We are going out to buy the hospital tank today and are concerned that if it is ick and from what i've read we should medicate the original tank, but I don't want to kill anything else with the medication, all the other fish are doing fine and they are doing and eating like they are supposed to. I'm really worried, they are beautiful fish and as we are new to the salt it seems treating the fish are a lot different than that of fresh, we used a product called Clout that seemed to turn everything blue, but did the job when the fish were sick. I know we can't use clout on the saltwater fish but any help will be much appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[reefrunner69]

It sounds like brookynella hostilis. I will scan an article from AFM and copy the text in the next reply. IME, if not caught early brookynella has about a 98%ortality rate.

 

[New2Salt]

Is that going to affect the other creatures we have? I'll wait for your post, thanks!

 

[reefrunner69]

Aquarium Fish Magazine[/i] Article by Scott Michael]
Anemone Fish Disease
This ciliated protozoa. known as Brooklynella hostilis, infects both the gills and skin of fish. Two of the most diagnostic symptoms of this infection are the sloughing of protective skin cells and increased secretion of mucus. The infected fish may also I become lethargic, exhibit respiratory distress, stop feeding and display areas of discolored skin on the body.
Like Uronema, this parasite feeds on the tissue and blood of its host, and causes osmoregulatory distress as it opens portals for the loss of body water to the marine environment. The gill tissue can also be damaged by the parasite's feeding activity. Unlike Uronema, anemonefish disease must have a host to survive.
Brooklynella usually becomes apparent when fish are experiencing unusual amounts of stress. For example, it is often seen in young anemonefish that are crowded in wholesale facilities or retail stores. It gets its name from the fact that it regularly infects anemonefish, but it will parasitize other fish species, as well (e.g., it is a common seahorse parasite).
One of the most commonly employed treatments for Brookiynella is to use a combination of formalin and malachite green. However, care should be taken with fish that have severe skin damage, as this will make them more sensitive to formalin treatment (it could poison them). Malachite green can be used on its own at a concentration of 0.10 part per million (ppm) (Blasiola, 1992). Once again, the best treatment option is to lower the saliniity. This will eradicate the parasite and help reduce osmoregulatory distress in your fish. Note that copper is not an i effective treatment for this parasite.

HTH

 

[New2Salt]

Thank you so much. We weren't very smart on not having a quarantine tank to begin with, I wish I had read more about that and it probably would have saved us this problem. We are purchasing a small aquarium that will become our quarantine/hospital tank. From the article you put on here it states " Once again, the best treatment option is to lower the saliniity. This will eradicate the parasite and help reduce osmoregulatory distress in your fish."
I take it this is the fresh water dip that I keep reading? Are you sure this won't kill the fish entirely since it's already stressed as it is? Ok, I'm gonna show how newbie I really am, Do we just stick the fish in new made saltwater, or do we take water from the original tank and put the fish back in that and medicate that since the PH and ammonia is where it should be? OR do we put it in a tank with the salt content not as high as what we have it at now?

Our salt is at 1.023 and PH is at 8.2.

Looking at the male, it looks to have like the only way I can describe it is like a salt outline on the top just behind his head.

Thank you again for helping and for this site!

 

[reefrunner69]

Once you set up the q-tank, I would fill it with water from the aquarium. Then when you do your waterchanges 25-35% every other day, or whatever is necessary to keep the ammonia and nitrite down, I would use water from the main tank to fill it.

He is not referring to a FW dip, he is referring to a hyposalinity treatment. This requires the fish remain in a low specific gravity (1.015-1.017) for upto 3 weeks, then you slowly (over the course of a week or two) raise tha SG back to normal. I have never tried a hyposalinity treatment on brooklynella. We had a good success rate prophylacticlly treating wild caught clowns with formalin and nitrafurazone.

Now from your last description it sounds like you may have ick rather than brooklynella, check out this link and then see if that helps nail it down. http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=7

 

[New2Salt]

Thank you, you are right, looking at the description it is the ick

Thank you so much for your help and patience with someone so inexperienced.

 

[EMS503]

Hi. Never heard of Brookynella Hostilis, but after reading your post and reading Reefrunners information (which was very good) sounds like your Female may have the Brookynella and your male has Ich both being stress related parasites. Hope all works out for you.

 

[New2Salt]

Thank you for your advice, the male died last night, he hadn't done the flashing until last night and just went to town flashing all over the hospital tank, the female isn't flashing but her breathing is getting hard and has a lot of white velvety stuff on her gills and on her body, she also had the sugar grains that were mentioned in Reef's posting on this forum, so she is in a 5 gallon aquarium with a piece of pvc for hiding and is being treated with copper safe and we are checking it with a test. Our other critters in the main tank seem to be doing just great, the blennies are all over the place climbing up the back of the glass to get the copepods and the cleaner shrimp will pick at the blennies and the rock from time to time, so I'm hoping what the clowns have doesn't go to the others, in the future we will do an isolation tank before putting them in to our main tank.

Thank you all for your help, it was really sad to watch the little male die, he was always next to the female following her everywhere.

I do have another question though, I may be jumping the gun, but if she pulls though will we have any problems introducing another clown in the tank?