Help diagnose problem with dying clown *video enclosed*

[CzarKasM]

Hi everyone,

I need a little help.... My clown has been doing fine for about a month, she's been swimming around fine, and eating with no problems, until yesterday I noticed her swimming strangly. I went to two local fish stores and told them about my problem, they told me to do a fresh water dip, and I did. I made sure the temp and ph was exactly as my tank is, and dipped her for about 4 minutes. I don't notice any difference yet. If she lives till tomorrow, I plan on doing another freshwater dip. Is there anything else I should do? And what could this be, and what could of been the cause?

tank parameters are as follows:

Temp 77 - 1 degree fluctuation usually a day
PH - 8.2
Ammo - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 20
Salinity is at 1.023

Here is the video from youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3MVwQKbWYs

Thanks Everyone

 

[Anonymous]

I'm not gonna be much help I'm afraid. Your nitrate is high, but those fish usually are pretty resistant. I don't see any evidence of brook or other external parasite. Saltwater fish rarely IME get swim bladder problems, though that is what it looks like. Is the fish tank raised or wild caught? How old is your tank?

As far as what to do, the freshwater dip probably didn't hurt, hopefully someone else will chime in here.

 

[CzarKasM]

Thanks for the reply.

The tank has been set up for almost 2 months, the clown was supposably tank raisied, and I forgot to mention its a 100 gallon tank in my previous post. Anyways, when I noticed the clown acting strange I did a 10% water change, and also changed my carbon in my penguin filters. Besides that and the freshwater dip, thats all I can think of to help my situation.

 

[trido]

IME When I see a fish in that shape it is always too late . That is one dying fish. Sorry for your loss in advance.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm with Trido on this one. Doesn't look good.
I'd try a large water change and more carbon as a last resort, maybe some toxin got into the tank.

 

[Len]

Clownfish often suffer from swim bladder problems. This might be what you have. Alas, it's usually genetic and nothing you can do. Sometimes it's not genetic and heals, but again, nothing you can do

 

[blackcloudmedia]

Could it have been a cyanide catch and the effects are just now showing?

 

[CzarKasM]

My Mother in Law was doing something in the kitchen with pure bleach about the time this all started, and the house smelled pretty strong of it for about an hour. The kitchen is about 20-25 feet away from the tank.... could this be the cause of my trouble? This is the only thing out of the ordinary that I can think happened.

 

[shabash]

Although I would not rule out the bleach.. unless your other fish show any signs then its probably not the bleach.. I had a clown do that 2 days after buying it and it had velvet.. After it died I was able to look closely at the gills and they were covered in slime and whitish "stuff" no other outwardly signs.. FW dip and formalin might help but I think your little guy is too far gone.. mine was.. sorry.
The rest of my fish got the FW formalin bath and are doing fine. I would try to leave him in as long as possible as long as no other signs of distress are shown as in lying on side or upside down. My healthy fish stayed in for 12 minutes then they got a SW "rinse" before going back to their home. Wanted to be on the safe side since formalin and corals dont mix.
I would have QT them but my QT is being housed by an not so well behaved damsel and 15 marine glass shrimp and there is no way am I going through trying to catch them again if I had to put them back into the display.

 

[CzarKasM]

Well, I went and bought a 10 gallon for a quarantine. I lowered the salinity in the qt to 1.021, and I plan on buying some MelaFix tomorrow morning to see if it will help.

 

[trido]

My tank room is also our laundry room. We use bleach and other detergents without a second thought. I doubt that the bleach in the kitchen across the house has anything whatsoever to do with it. JMO

 

[IslandCrow]

Define "swimming strangely". Is the fish having a hard time swimming and has a hard time getting up from the bottom of the tank? Is it swimming erratically. . .lethargically? The more detailed information you can give, the better.

I wouldn't give the fish up as lost quite yet, but you'll definitely want to get a good diagnosis before going wild with treatments. The freshwater dip probably didn't do anything for you, since that's used to treat for external parasites, and it doesn't sound like that's your issue. The good news is, it probably didn't do any real harm either.

 

[Eboman]

I'm not trying to be insensitive here....

But, everytime someone asks me about getting into marine fish.....my first word of advise is....

Fish die. Don't take it personally.

It's really amazing they make it to our LFS in the first place.

I don't think you've done anything wrong. Unfortunatley, it happens sometimes.

It looks like a relatively new tank. Not that it's a bad thing.

I've put $100 fish in my systems, only to have them croak in a day or two.

My advise, keep feeding him (or her....not sure), soak the food in Selcon (for some reason, that smelly stuff really attracts the fish), and hope for the best.

Keep the faith.

At this point, I wouldn't recommend removing him from the tank. The less stress, the better. Turn off the lights to keep the other fish away from him.

Good luck and be safe,
Eboman