Clownfish died, does anyone have any ideas

[stacey1990]

Basically as the title says, one of my clownfish has died and I have no idea what happened.
These are my first saltwater fish, first saltwater tank, nothing else has been in this tank. The 2 fish were bought together from the same place around 1 year ago. They have been doing great.
I got up this morning and 1 was lying on the bottom of the tank breathing heavily, not even half an hour later it was dead.
I've tested salinity which is fine and ammonia, which was 0.25, but this was with the api test kit which I know isn't great but is the only one I have.
I took the fish out or the tank and lay it on kitchen roll to have a look at it, I cant see any marks or anything unusual on the fish.
The other fish seems fine and acting normal. I also have coral in the tank which seems to be doing fine.
I'm just not really sure what has happened and hoped someone may have some ideas.
Tia

 

[vetteguy53081]

Basically as the title says, one of my clownfish has died and I have no idea what happened.
These are my first saltwater fish, first saltwater tank, nothing else has been in this tank. The 2 fish were bought together from the same place around 1 year ago. They have been doing great.
I got up this morning and 1 was lying on the bottom of the tank breathing heavily, not even half an hour later it was dead.
I've tested salinity which is fine and ammonia, which was 0.25, but this was with the api test kit which I know isn't great but is the only one I have.
I took the fish out or the tank and lay it on kitchen roll to have a look at it, I cant see any marks or anything unusual on the fish.
The other fish seems fine and acting normal. I also have coral in the tank which seems to be doing fine.
I'm just not really sure what has happened and hoped someone may have some ideas.
Tia

Hard to access once dead if more than 2 hours and no oics
Can be injury, aggression , disease, water quality or others
Any Raghu fins, white poop, slimy body?

 

[stacey1990]

Hard to access once dead if more than 2 hours and no oics
Can be injury, aggression , disease, water quality or others
Any Raghu fins, white poop, slimy body?

No absoloutley nothing I could I see. I fed them last night and as far as a remember everything seemed totally normal.
I just don't understand how the other fish seems totally fine and also the coral.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Other causes…. Low oxygen, internal issue. Was it’s head somewhat pinched in?

 

[stacey1990]

Other causes…. Low oxygen, internal issue. Was it’s head somewhat pinched in?

Not that I noticed. If it was internal, where would it have come from? Like I say, they've been in the tank for a year together and no other fish added.
Could it have had a problem all this time?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Not that I noticed. If it was internal, where would it have come from? Like I say, they've been in the tank for a year together and no other fish added.
Could it have had a problem all this time?

Just watch the other remaining clownfish very closely - rapid breathing, lethargy, not eating well.

In cases like this, where we are trying to remotely diagnose an issue, without some clues to work on, we can't usually come up with an answer. Fish do just spontaneously die due to some internal issue, but that is fairly rare.

Jay

 

[stacey1990]

UPDATE. So I've got up this morning and the other fish has died. It seemed fine yesterday, eating and swimming as normal. The only thing I noticed last night was that it was hanging out in a part of the tank it didn't usually, but I just put that down to the fact it was now on its own.
I've attached a picture I took when I removed it from the tank. The only thing I can see is a small mark on the white band near its head. Dont know if it's even related.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

The mark on the head isn't anything of an obvious problem.
You didn't see any rapid breathing in this fish yesterday?
You said you have other fish in the tank and the corals are doing well?
I worry that there is the possibility of a fish disease working in the tank, and your other fish might be at risk.

Jay

 

[stacey1990]

No rapid breathing from this 1. It looked fine when I went to bed. These were the only 2 fish in the tank so no fish now.
The one that died yesterday morning was lying on the bottom breathing rapidly.

 

[stacey1990]

And yes, coral looks fine

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

And yes, coral looks fine

In this case, you probably won't be able to track down the exact cause, but since both fish died in short order and the corals are fine, I think you can rule out water quality issues. Given the rapid breathing, I would say that the cause was a gill parasite, most likely Amyloodinium, marine velvet.

The safest thing to do would be to leave the tank fishless for 6 weeks. Can you purchase pre-quarantined fish in the UK? The best option would be to quarantine your own fish, but I realize that this is difficult for people with just one aquarium to do. Our quarantine protocol is here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/current-quarantine-protocol.825055/

Jay

 

[Frank SM]

Two clownfish dying after a year like this is very unusual. I know you said you haven't added any fish but have you added anything to the tank recently? Something could have come in with a piece of coral, rock, etc.

 

[stacey1990]

Two clownfish dying after a year like this is very unusual. I know you said you haven't added any fish but have you added anything to the tank recently? Something could have come in with a piece of coral, rock, etc.

Coral was the last things added but that was months ago.

 

[stacey1990]

In this case, you probably won't be able to track down the exact cause, but since both fish died in short order and the corals are fine, I think you can rule out water quality issues. Given the rapid breathing, I would say that the cause was a gill parasite, most likely Amyloodinium, marine velvet.

The safest thing to do would be to leave the tank fishless for 6 weeks. Can you purchase pre-quarantined fish in the UK? The best option would be to quarantine your own fish, but I realize that this is difficult for people with just one aquarium to do. Our quarantine protocol is here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/current-quarantine-protocol.825055/

Jay

I've actually been thinking about this this. I have a larger tank I've been meaning to set up for a while now so I think this one will just be left fishless and used as quarentine.
If it was a parasite, can they really sit dormant this long before killing the fish?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

I've actually been thinking about this this. I have a larger tank I've been meaning to set up for a while now so I think this one will just be left fishless and used as quarentine.
If it was a parasite, can they really sit dormant this long before killing the fish?

The actual time parasites can remain infective in an aquarium with no fish hosts present depends on the species of parasite, how severe the infection was, and the water temperature. The range is 35 to 75 days. 45 days is a good general rule for velvet. You can go longer if you want more surety, but I wouldn’t go less.
Jay