question about clowns....

[warloc4326]

I have been able to keep my mandarin alive and healthy for over three months now and it seems that I am having decent luck with her. However, I purchased a mated pair of clarkii clowns about three weeks ago and just last sunday they became lathargic and darkened colors. Being that I didn't have a sick tank and one of my buddies did he gave me a hand with treating them. Both did not live through the week, one died that night and the other about 4 days later. Any suggestions about what might have been wrong? I have had this tank established for over nine months now.

Thom

 

[Anonymous]

Any more information you could give us?

 

[warloc4326]

I've got approx 20 lbs of live rock, 15lb of live sand. using a 24 watt 50/50 fluorescent lamp, fluval canister filter, i've got a leather coral, 2 xenia, some mushrooms, a few button polyps. As for what happened to the fish it seemed they were fine for the first two weeks no abnormal behavior and no changes in color or signs of disease. they seemed to like to try and "dig holes" in the sand near the right front of my tank.

That's all i seem to be able to remember at the moment.

Thom

Add: I also was feeding them an algea flake mixture (dry flake food enriched) with some live/frozen brine occasionally being eaten as well (brine mainly to make sure the goby got enough to eat)

 

[shalegac]

How big is your tank? Did you test any of the chem levels?

 

[warloc4326]

The tank is a 25gal. also inside are a red serpent star, banded coral shrimp, blue velvet damsel, horseshoe crab, few of those hermits, some sand stars. I do a 10% water change ever other week. temp is approx a constant 76-78. any other questions?

no chems added into the tank, ph 7.9, nitrates undetectable, ammonia normal.

Thom