Gasping Clowns

[Overstocker]

Dunnno what the prob is.. :? .. My 2 clowns, of about a week, are listless, breathing heavy and not eating. No other outward signs of problems. They were fine 2 days ago. Other critters are fine (2 Peppermint shrimp, 1 conch, lots of snails and a few tiny starfish). The tank is about 6 weeks old and is getting some red algae and a bit of hair algae (conch munching on the green stuff).

The symptoms are high ammonia or low oxygen but I know that is not the case.

Any suggestions would be helpful.

TIA

drilled 75 Gal with wet/dry, skimmer, MAG 350 with GAC, 40lbs live rock, 30 lb of live sand, a bag of phos guard and a bag of chemi-pure in the wet/dry.
Ammonia=0
Nitrite=0
Nitrate=5
PH=8.3
Temp=81

 

[quarryshark]

Could be parasitic like velvet or brooklynella. Any outward signs like loosing their slime coat, spots, cloudy eyes, etc? The other symptoms you mention fit the bill.
Do you have a qt tank?
Read here for more info
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/brooklynellosisart.htm
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/amylloodiniumart.htm

 

[Overstocker]

The larger of the two seems to hang/swim heads up but not going all the way to the top. Not sure if I would recognize the loss of their slime coat. No white spot or any spots or patches. Their fins are not ragged and their gills are not red. I have dropped the lighting down to 6-8 hours a day to help with the algae stuff. I have some "Prime", does that help with the slime coat?

I have just set up a 29 gal tank, could use it for QT (nothing in it now). Was getting it ready to dump the critters in when/if I get some live rock......

 

[quarryshark]

do you have or have access to formalin? Maybe your lfs has it. You may want to consider setting up the 29 as a hospital tanks and if you can get the formalin, give them a 20 minute saltwater formalin baths for a couple of day and see if it helps. Or at least get them to qt to observe and keep them out of the main in case they do have something. No other fish?? Thats good at this point. May want to check out the articles, they are helpful.

 

[Overstocker]

Will check out the Formalin tomorrow at the LFS.

My tank has cycled and I am trying to go slow on adding anything. Had a couple yellow tail damsels but took one back because he was picking on the other one real bad (chewed off his tail) the one with the chewed up tail died that same night.

Really like the pair of ocellaris clowns, the have lots of personality and get along with each other great!

Thanks for the info!

 

[quarryshark]

They are cool fish.
Good luck!!!