@yogaman510 I’m sorry your storm clown isn’t doing well. My partner ordered the antibiotics online from fishmoxfishflex.
Our clownfish was fine for quit a while and then the issue returned. The antibiotics will treat certain bacterial infections, if that’s what’s causing swim bladder disease. But bacterial infections can cause scarring/damage to the swim bladder. Some of it can heal to function but in some cases it can’t. In our case, once the issue returned we started treating again and then decided to contact an aquatic veterinarian. I searched through my emails and found our initial dialogue. I’m copying it into this message. Following the dialogue I will explain our phone conversation and the actions that we took:
Possible Swim Bladder Disease: Amphiprion ocellaris
Hi Dr. Gregory,
We have a captive bred black snowflake clownfish, Amphiprion ocellaris (purchased as a juvenile through our LFS (PFK) from proaquatix that possibly has swim bladder disease or maybe an issue with his spine or birth defect. We wanted to see if we could setup an appointment with you to see if there are any treatment(s) to cure him or what our options are. We’re local, in Coral Springs, FL.
Here is some background information:
We purchased 3 black snowflake clownfish on 5/23/22: Larry, Curly, and Moe. Curly appeared to be the largest. We were transitioning to a larger tank (RedSea XL 525) so we put all 3 the black snowflake clownfish into the tank at the same time along with our older clownfish that we had in our previous tank. Once they established their territory, the older clownfish hosts the anemones on the left side of the tank and the black snowflake clowns host a frogspawn on the opposite side of the tank. After about 4 months (September) Curly started swimming erratically in circles and could not control himself.
Explanation of treatment: So we removed curly from the display and placed him/her in a small hospital tank (around Sept. 3rd). We tried Kanaplex (No response to tx) and then we tried metroplex and then aqua amoxicillin 500 mg. We used about 1/4 of the pill dissolved in a cup of his tank water and poured it into his tank. We saw improvements almost immediately and in about 3-4 days (Sept. 6-7th) she/he was swimming normal again. We treated him/her for a couple of weeks then returned him/her to the display on Sept. 18th. However, the dynamics of the community changed. S/he tried to go back to his friends but Curly had a hard time being accepted back by them. They began to chase and nip at Curly. We didn’t want Curly to be beat up after surviving what he went though. So we moved curly to our coral QT tank (Waterbox 15) and Curly has been living there). Curly did great in there for about 3 months. During this time Larry and Moe visibly matured and turned completely black. Curly’s face remained orange and near the holidays curly started swimming in circles again. At time it seemed like curly was positively buoyant and then negatively buoyant and went back and forth with buoyancy issues. Then curly became negatively buoyant for days. So we placed curly back in the hospital tank for another round of treatments. We tried kanaplex and then aqua abx cipro 500mg about 1/4 of the tablet for ten days. There wasn’t much change but he was still eating and had brief moments of swimming normally. So we ended up putting him back in his tank. On 1/26/23 we took him out again because he became negatively buoyant for an extended period of time. We tried cipro again. No change. We tried reef flux - no change.
Although his quality of life may be considered poor, when he sees us he uses his strength to try to swim towards up and at times, he can swim upright for a short period of time. He also uses short bursts of energy to rise to the surface to eat small pieces of krill. Because of this, we can’t bring ourselves to euthanize him. We were thinking of stitching a floatation device to him with some line and keeping him in a low flow tank to at least keep him mid water column and upright since Curly tries so hard and continues to eat. Side note- Curly’s face has developed a little more of the black coloration but his mouth and under his mouth is still orange. Also, curly is not much bigger than when we got him/her. Which leads me to wonder if he/she is maturing within his/her expected timeframe? I’ve also wondered about birth defect issues in clownfish due to inbreeding.
Needless to say, we found your info online. We would like to see if you could help us cure Curly or at least help us improve his/her quality of life. We look forward to hearing from you.
The doctor’s response:
Hi Christina Thank you for precise history. Sounds like stress related opportunistic systemic problem that may have led to permenant problems. I'm happy to direct you over the phone about options on this without fee. Call me tomorrow, Sunday, or asap when convenient for you and plan to take notes and speak for 10 around minutes. Im encouraged that you took initiative to reach out for your clownfish. Thankyou, Dr. G
We spoke over the phone the next day. He felt that our clownfish caught an opportunistic bacterial infection and the different antibiotics that we used (covering both gram - and +) treated the infection but the infection caused scarring/damage to the fishes swim bladder. He mentioned that the fish was probably a female now. The first time the issue occurred, after treatment, it just seemed to heal with time. But this second time around he said to try using E.M. Erythromycin manufactured by API. It’s broad spectrum and treats bacterial infections. We followed the directions on the package and put it in the water in our hospital tank. The hospital tank consisted of water from the tank the fish was in, a sponge filter, and I believe we also put a small air stone too. The doctor stated that the medication may not improve or cure anything but it was worth a shot. We did a couple courses of the medication. We saw some improvement.
While speaking to the doctor we also mentioned that the fish hadn’t built up a tolerance to our anemones nematocysts (stinging cells) so s/he couldn’t find comfort in an anemone. He recommended a mushroom. So when we put the fish back in our small coral QT tank I put a big green hairy mushroom in an anemone basket and had it lowered so the fish could go in and out of it but had the option to be in it and not far from the surface to reduce swimming efforts to the surface during feeding time. The fish didn’t have full buoyancy control but with the accommodations that we put in place the fish had decent quality of life, was eating, and was always happy to see us. She lived longer than one would expect but sadly passed away a few months ago. But our efforts allowed us to enjoy a lot more time with her, we know we did everything we could, and we are at peace with that.
I hope this information is helpful for you and other reefers that may be experiencing this. I hope you can save your fish. I’m sending good healing vibes your way!
