Clownfish flukes?

[Ashy]

I got a snowflake clown pair last week and after acclimating they swam to seperate sides of the tank, both eating fine then a few days later I noticed white stringy poop from one of the clowns I thought I would just observe as the fish was eating well and behaving normally apart from what I think is rapid breathing but I dont know what a normal clown breathing rate is, its not gasping for air, yawning or going to the surface just opens its mouth a few times a second. The white stringy poop actually went away but today I noticed the clown rubbing on the rocks, shaking its head and presenting itself to my royal gramma like it wants the gramma to clean it, it will swin to the grammas cave and lift up its fin whatever side is facing the gramma and the gramma will open its mouth and poke it. I dont notice any white spots on any of the fish and the other clown and royal gramma act normal. For the first few days the affected clownfish would mosty stay behind the overflow box swimming vertically in the corner and only come out to eat but now its out all day (it still goes back to its corner at night).

So not only did I pay for a clownpair thats not actually a pair I got sent a parasite along with it for the premium.

I don't have a QT system, I guess I should FW dip the clown to confirm flukes and do a treatment of fluke solve(UK powdered prazipro) and get some general cure and focus on order from america to treat internally(is this necessary if marine fish drink the tank water?)

Videos (could be processing should be 1080p)

 

[SlugSnorter]

I got a snowflake clown pair last week and after acclimating they swam to seperate sides of the tank, both eating fine then a few days later I noticed white stringy poop from one of the clowns I thought I would just observe as the fish was eating well and behaving normally apart from what I think is rapid breathing but I dont know what a normal clown breathing rate is, its not gasping for air, yawning or going to the surface just opens its mouth a few times a second. The white stringy poop actually went away but today I noticed the clown rubbing on the rocks, shaking its head and presenting itself to my royal gramma like it wants the gramma to clean it, it will swin to the grammas cave and lift up its fin whatever side is facing the gramma and the gramma will open its mouth and poke it. I dont notice any white spots on any of the fish and the other clown and royal gramma act normal. For the first few days the affected clownfish would mosty stay behind the overflow box swimming vertically in the corner and only come out to eat but now its out all day (it still goes back to its corner at night).

So not only did I pay for a clownpair thats not actually a pair I got sent a parasite along with it for the premium.

I don't have a QT system, I guess I should FW dip the clown to confirm flukes and do a treatment of fluke solve(UK powdered prazipro) and get some general cure and focus on order from america to treat internally(is this necessary if marine fish drink the tank water?)

Videos (could be processing should be 1080p)

tank params? tank age? looks pretty young. Could be brook. theres a decent chance flukes can survive in DT even after treatment, better to QT. White stringy poop doesn't specifically mean disease in SW, sometimes its just poor nutrition.

 

[Ashy]

tank params? tank age? looks pretty young. Could be brook. theres a decent chance flukes can survive in DT even after treatment, better to QT. White stringy poop doesn't specifically mean disease in SW, sometimes its just poor nutrition.

Cycled for 9 weeks, added gramma then 2 weeks later the clowns, only one clown showing bad signs and all crabs (3 hermits) and snails (2 nassarius) look fine

 

[SlugSnorter]

Cycled for 9 weeks, added gramma then 2 weeks later the clowns, only one clown showing bad signs and all crabs (3 hermits) and snails (2 nassarius) look fine

alr, should be fine then param wise. This looks like it could be velvet or brook imo,

@vetteguy53081 sry for the ping but what do you think?

 

[Ashy]

https://aquaticlog.com/aquariums/ashy/2 My aquatic log so you can see a history of the params and cycle time etc

also running lightless so probably explains the tank being over clean.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Clown is moving quickly
IS tail frayed or bitten?
How is breathing rate?
Any haziness to its color?
Age of tank?

 

[Ashy]

Clown is moving quickly
IS tail frayed or bitten?
How is breathing rate?
Any haziness to its color?
Age of tank?

I notice no damage to any fins, the tank has been running for 3 months lightless with a 9 week cycle, the clown I think has flukes is opening its mouth about 2-3 times a second but it does not take big laboured breaths or yawn etc just pretty fast the other clown opens its mouth 1-2 times a second. The clown I'm worried about is actually more vibrant colour then the one that looks fine, deep orange, bright white head and paler to pinkish body like I see in other pictures of snowflakes online.

 

[Ashy]

Thats what I mean by pale to pink body, it had me worried at first but seems common on snowflakes.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I notice no damage to any fins, the tank has been running for 3 months lightless with a 9 week cycle, the clown I think has flukes is opening its mouth about 2-3 times a second but it does not take big laboured breaths or yawn etc just pretty fast the other clown opens its mouth 1-2 times a second. The clown I'm worried about is actually more vibrant colour then the one that looks fine, deep orange, bright white head and paler to pinkish body like I see in other pictures of snowflakes online.

Just assuring no brook
One measure you can take to eliminate possibility is to give the fish a 5 minute freshwater dip in a Clean bucket of tap water the same temperature as display tank
Add a pinch of baking soda if you have for ph
After 5 minutes, return fish to display tank and look on bottom of container for what looks like sesame seeds or fish scales. If you can see any- it’s flukes

 

[Ashy]

Not saw the clown go near a rock to scratch in a while but its still twitching its head about could this just be part of the pairing behaviour? Fed spirulina brine and a small amount of pellets (they dont seem to eat mysis much, getting some live clams to freeze and try) 3 times today and it ate like a champ as did the others.

Also saw it poop a nice brown turd that sunk and detached instantly.

I will do a freshwater bath tomorrow unless it gets better by then and test for flukes.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Thats what I mean by pale to pink body, it had me worried at first but seems common on snowflakes.

Just some side observations: looks like the gramma is trying to push the clown from its cave, but the clown isn’t budging. That indicates it would rather be harassed by the gramma than the other clown. At some point, you may need to adjust the living arrangements.
You won’t see flukes in the FW dip unless they are Neobenedenia (large species). If after the dip though, the fish breathes slower (the next day or two) that indirectly identifies flukes.
Praziquantel is relatively safe to use and I see a lot of gill fluke issues with royal gramma, maybe consider treating with that?
Jay

 

[Ashy]

Just some side observations: looks like the gramma is trying to push the clown from its cave, but the clown isn’t budging. That indicates it would rather be harassed by the gramma than the other clown. At some point, you may need to adjust the living arrangements.
You won’t see flukes in the FW dip unless they are Neobenedenia (large species). If after the dip though, the fish breathes slower (the next day or two) that indirectly identifies flukes.
Praziquantel is relatively safe to use and I see a lot of gill fluke issues with royal gramma, maybe consider treating with that?
Jay

The other clown does not bother it, if anything its the aggressive one I saw it chase the other clown around a bit its definitely the dominant one and so far the gramma is breathing normal from what I can tell.

I will try fluke solve wich is a powdered praziquantel

 

[Ashy]

The clown seems to be getting worse it is spending most the time at the surface now vertically like its gasping for air at the surface. so I did a 5 min FW dip and did not see any flukes in the container the clown when put back in the DT went and hid back where it hid when I first added it to the tank (bottom corner behind the overflow).

During the freshwater dip the clown was pretty active I hardly had to promote it to swim. I floated a bowl in the tank with a airpump in it for 30 mins with a few squirts of tank water to buffer the PH, 5 minute dip.

 

[Ashy]

Putting together a QT, how big a tank should I get for 2 clowns and a royal gramma to house them for a full fallow period on the DT, not just for flukes and brook but for ich and velvet. Hopefully not uronema.

 

[Ashy]

Also should I dose h202 in the DT while I setup a QT?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Putting together a QT, how big a tank should I get for 2 clowns and a royal gramma to house them for a full fallow period on the DT, not just for flukes and brook but for ich and velvet. Hopefully not uronema.

If you can support the QT with a good biofilter, you only would need a 10 gallon. The trick will be to get a good biofilter on the fly like this. Bacteria in a bottle like Fritzyme or Dr. Tims (not sure what you have in the UK) will help, but the tank still won't be super stable.

I doubt this is Uronema. However, the clown seems to be going downhill pretty fast for it to just be flukes.

I think you should try copper. If I wasn't worried about velvet, I'd suggest you try hyposalinity right in your display (I didn't see any invertebrates in your video) but hypo doesn't work with velvet.

For velvet, H202 only works as a dip, and then, you need to move the fish to a new tank.

Jay

 

[Ashy]

Noticed the clown on the sandbed near the ovelflow just laying still last night when I went to bed, thought it was gonna be dead this morning but its swimming around pretty happily still head shaking and fast breathing but not as bad.

 

[Ashy]

Just put 1 gram of the fluke solve into my 250 liter DT (Powdered 50% praziquantel)

I have conflicting instuctions on when to redose and if I need to at all. Its a powder prazi not a ethanol bound one so it is not stripped by bacteria in 4 days like prazipro do I even need to redose it? I plan on holding it at this level for 14 days. I will do water changes like normal and top up the water change water with enough powder to keep it at the right level.

temp is 24c and salinity 34ppt using the calculator thats a 7-9 day egg hatching so leaving it for 14 days and then doing a big water change and adding carbon should cover flukes?

I took the skimmer cup off and put a zip loc bag over it to minimize splashing.

 

[Ashy]

Video of the tank right after adding prazi

 

[Unitylover]

it looks like he is swimming kinda off center