Worried about my clown fish

[SW-FLguy]

My clown fish does not seem to be himself lately. He is not eating like he normally does. He has eaten only once in the last 4 days. Normally he is the pig of the tank and eats more then his share. Now he is hiding down at the bottom of the tank behind my rock.

My tank is a 26 Gal bow front that has been running for over two years. I have had this clown for about that long as well. I did rercently add 3 new pieces of LR, and a yellow watchman goby. I added the Watchman two weeks ago and the LR last week. The LR was cured and I have had no increased levels of Ammonia or Nitrite. My water quality is high and I have been testing every few days since I did add new LR. My other fish are a Royal Gramma, and a Purple Firefish. My other fish are all eating as usual and my new Yellow Watchman is also eating very well.

My clown appears to look fine and at night he sleeps in his normal place. Do you think he is just getting used to the new additions to the tank?

Thanks.....

 

[melosu58]

Maybe he`s being harrassed by the newer fish.

 

[SW-FLguy]

I don't think that is the case. The clown is twice the size of the little yellow watchman. The watchman stays by his burrow in the from of my tank and does not bother anyone.

 

[melosu58]

I`m just trouble shooting

 

[SW-FLguy]

Well my clown is still the same. Still hanging in the back behind the rock and not eating :-(

He is also opening and closing his mouth a lot which I do not think is normal.....he still shows no other signs of illness and appears to be swiming as usual. I guess I will just have to wait and see if he comes around.

 

[roka64]

Have you tried soaking the food in garlic? That sets up a feeding frenzy in my tank. Are all those fish quicker than the clown, iare they eating all the food before the clown can get to it?

He is also opening and closing his mouth a lot which I do not think is normal

This could be signs of stress, maybe he has an internal parasite. Has he changed colors or do you see any "film/slime" forming on him? Do you have a QT?

 

[SW-FLguy]

His appearance looks normal...no color change or film or slime, he is normally the fast one to the food and it is the other fish that normally have to wait till he is done. He normally would come right up to the surface with his head out of the water when it was feeding time....I do not have a QT tank set up, and the thought of tearing my reef apart to try and get him is not appealing....I will try soaking the food in garlic...

 

[SW-FLguy]

Well my clow is now showing faded discolored blotches and just looks worse. Unfortuantely I do not have a QT tank....I guess I could use a big tubberware container....I do not have any meds other then Melafix which I bought quite some time ago.....this is very frustrating watching him die....

 

[melosu58]

You dont have to watch him die. Let`s do some PWC and see if that helps. It cant hurt.

 

[SW-FLguy]

I did a 25% water change yesterday with the hopes that it would help. He did come out from behind the rocks tonight and swam around the tank a few time. I am not sure if that is a good sign, or if it was kind of his last efforts....he kind of would swim then go down to the sand then swim a bit more.....I am keeping an eye on him and keeping my fingers crossed. He is the oldest fish in my tank at 2 years old and was always the most full of life and energized fish in my tank...specially at feeding time. I have been checking my water and other then my nitrates being a little high at around 20 my water tests good. I also received my refractometer today and tested my salinity...it is at 1.026.

 

[roka64]

I also received my refractometer today and tested my salinity...it is at 1.026.

You can lower that with a PWC, over time. I have mine set at 1.022, right now, although I am not too sure how that would effect corals. I decided to lower mine after reading a post about how it is much easier on the fish and could possibly hamper the spread of disease.... You could just get a 10-20G tank for a QT, or use the tupperware.

How do you like that refracto? My hydro was waaaay off!

 

[SW-FLguy]

Well no change in my clown....he is still not eating. I tried to get him out to QT him but he still is pretty quick when you try to get him. He hides behind my rock at the back of the tank.

Well I am in the early stages of picking out and setting up a 75 Gallon tank. I think I am going to use my 26 as a QT, but I may go out and pickup a 10 gallon just to have it on hand for an emergency.

I love the refractometer...it is so easy to use and easy to get a accurate reading.

Also today my Royal Gramma injured herself. She got spooked durning feeding and ran for cover in the rocks and scratched her head. I can see some of her purple scraped off and hanging on to her still. It does not look like a deep wound so i am hopinbg she will heal with no issues.

 

[Scoot]

My clowns started spending a little more time hiding after adding a somewhat active parrotfish. Any time he starts moving about, they tend to go hide behind my overflow, for a minute or two.

 

[euro_Boy_To]

You have to try to get him to come to the surface.. If he eats thats usually the best way.. then just flick the net right over him..
My blenny just died today.. he was even eating a bit too.. but this is the time you might still be able to save that clown, later on he'll be all out of energy and just die.
You gotta get him out of there, and maybe he will get better if he's by himself in a tank. My clownfish was similar to what you describe when I bought him, he slowly got better and his appetite grew and now he's happier than ever before.

You also have to consider it's stressful to move him, especially now that he has barely any energy left.. he could give out his last ounce of energy running away from the net..

Another thing you could try to do is remove the LR you added, maybe that had something to do with it.. and do a lot of water changes. This is a lot of work.. I understand you care about the fish.. when I went to the LFS they told me its cheaper and easier to just let my blenny die.. I still tried to get him better but it was too late. You might still have a few days.. I read somewhere than he could go 7 days without food.. maybe longer.

Also, what are you feeding him? I just noticed that I was feeding my blenny "expired" algae.. I thought it was brown algae, but it was actually green that was so old it had turned color. I can't believe the LFS sold me that stuff like that.. I don't really know if that had anything to do with the fish dieing, but I dont think extremely old algae was good for him..

 

[SW-FLguy]

I have done a number of water changes....my water is good....all of my coral and other fish seem fine. I do not want him to die but I tried twice to get him out with no luck. He is still pretty quick and I do not want to stress out the rest of my tank by taking all of my rock out to try and catch him.

He is going on 6 days now without eating.....I feed them a varied diet of frozen misis shrimp, frozen formula one (was my clowns favorite) and pellets which he also loved.

The problem is my tank is only 26 Gal and I have it pretty full of rock and coral so it is not easy to move a net around in my tank.

I will try one more time to get him out.

Thanks all for the comments, I will keep you posted.

 

[euro_Boy_To]

Well, I hope it all goes well for you...

There's really not much you can do in a situation like this unfortunately.. and it really sucks.. I just went through the same thing.

When I went to the store they gave me this stuff called Erythromicin, it's a broad antibiotic,.. maybe your clown has some kind of internal disease?If it does that would cure it... but there's no way to get him to take that stuff unless he eats it/soak his food in it.

The guy there said I might try to just catch him and stick the drops bottle right in his mouth.. it would be very difficult to actually achieve this though and not very fun for the fish or you.

I don't know if fish can "eat" stuff by breathing it? I heard from one LFS they can.. if so you can get a small container and put him in that container with a few drops of that medicine so he can breathe it in. That's basically the last ditch effort..

You say he's pretty fast still, that's a good sign.. means you still might have enough time to save him.

 

[SW-FLguy]

Well I can home from work today and found my clown wedged under a rock. He is still alive, and I was able to get him out. I have him in a large tubberware container but I do not think he has long to live. The only med I had was Mela Fix so I put some of that in the water and a bit of food but I think it is too late.....I will let you know how it goes....

 

[euro_Boy_To]

See if you can get some Erythromicyn.. the LFS told me it cures a lot of internal dieseases.. it's good to have around just in case too, even if you buy it and it's too late.

It looks like MelaFix won't do anything from the description I found of it..
You need a powerful antibiotic at this point.

Let us know what happened.