spots on a maroon clown fish

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:? I am relatively new to this hobby. I have had a salt water aquarium for 1 1/2 years. It is a 55gal reef.

I recently purchased a maroon clown fish with white stripes. He seemed stressed for a couple of hours and then started acting normal. I thought it was a transition period to a new tank. He began to eat and swim around nicely.
Now after about a week he has developed spots on his tail fin and side fins. None on his body at all. These are a dark color. They look almost maroon in color. I am confused!!!

I am not sure whether this is an infection or the fish is turning colors. I have been told by my local pet store that these maroon fish will turn a deeper maroon color and the stripes will turn yellow. Is this true?

Any suggestions would be helpful. I am trying to get some photos to give you a better idea what it looks like.

 

[Anonymous]

Without seeing a picture and without knowing tank parameters and other inhabitants I'll take an educated guess. You say it's acting normally and eating so my guess would be what is called melanism ( a dark coloration of the tissue ) that is most likely brought on by stress though most Clowns develop dark spots as they age which is also a melanism and is perfectly normal.
To answer your other question Amphiprion tricintus will darken in color and some develop a yellowish tinge to their stripes when they mature and as they become even older the colors will fade.
Please do post what other inhabitants you have plus tank parameters and maybe my diagnosis will change.

Regards,
David Mohr

 

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Thanks for your reply. I have a yellow tang, 2 blue damsels, 2 domino damsels, 2 2 stripe damsels, madarin, hawkfish, 3 serpant stars, 3 anenomes and 2 corals. My PH is 8.0 amonia 0.0 nitrates 0.8 calcium between 580-620. I just retested everything.

This is different from last evening. There were no nitrates and the ph was 8.2. I am going to do a 15 gallon water change now. Any other suggestions?

 

[Anonymous]

All this is in a 55gl tank ?
Well I stand by my original diagnosis.
Domino Damsels ( Dascyllus trimaculatus ) can be incredibly agressive, Blue Damsel ( Chrystiptera cyanea ) is fine, Yellow Tangs ( Zebrasoma flavescens ) require a lot of swimming room and a 55gl tank I would say is not even minimum size, 2 Striped Damsel I'm not sure what you mean by this but I'll guess it's also in the genus Dascyllus and is probably fine, Hawkish ( do you know what species ? ) Mandarin ( What species ? I hope you know that these are extremely difficult to keep long term ), 3 Anemones ( do you happen to know what species ? ), corals I'm not concerned about though maybe I should be, what type of lighting do you have ?
Now lastlly what kind of Serpent stars ?


Regards,
David Mohr