clownfish fin discoloration

Sixty7x · Feb 13, 2020

I'm not too concerned yet, but I've attached a few photos of my clowns. I got them 2/8/20 and they have been in QT. I've been ramping up copper power slowly and feeding medicated food (frozen mysis with general cure, focus and selcon). my question is about the black in some of the fins seems to be lighter/translucent than when they first came home. The picture with blue background is them in LFS on 2/8/20. The other 3 is them in QT today 2/13/20. one fish is the tail and anal fin. the other fish has the same look in the pectoral fin. any thoughts?

Sixty7x · Feb 15, 2020

I want to believe no news is good news. On the smaller of the two clowns there has been some more loss of black color on tail and pectoral fins. The larger of the two clowns only has the loss of color on one pectoral fin. There has been some aggression as they are close in size and weren't paired when I got them. I'm hoping the color loss is due to possible nipping. I just don't see pieces of the fins missing. just color loss.

PPPPPP42 · Feb 16, 2020

I’ve heard of a number of clownfish color changes some pretty drastic.
One of mine went from normal orange and white striped to dark on top almost looking like it had ash snowed on top of it. Pretty cool actually.

Seems to be a normal clownfish weirdness thing for them to do that though I don’t know if it’s breed, age, pairing or conditions that trigger it.

The aggression should hopefully settle down once one comes out on top. If they are not actually injuring each other I wouldn’t worry about it. Hopefully they are still young enough for one to be male and the other female or just happen to be already.

Sixty7x · Feb 16, 2020

The aggression right now is minimal and they hang together all day long. I don't see any damage or any of the fins missing pieces. Just the black coloring on the tail, pectoral and anal fins seems to be fading. I'm going to keep observing and hopefully it's not an infection, disease or parasite. I'm on day 3 of therapeutic copper at 2.0 ppm and suppose i'm a little anxious that everything works out fine. It's my first time doing QT.

Delaney5 · Apr 8, 2020

Any luck? I have a clown currently who has something similar happening I believe..

Sixty7x · Apr 14, 2020

Delaney5 said:
Any luck? I have a clown currently who has something similar happening I believe..

Not much has changed since I originally asked this question. The clowns are a bit larger and I think that makes it look less noticeable. They both seem healthy and that's what is most important. In my quest to make sure I did everything possible in QT I may have been trying too hard and looked into things too much. If it was a real problem I think the fish may show other signs of stress. good luck