Clowns acting weird and not eating

[Terrapin2000]

I am new to the hobby and this is my first reef tank. My tank is approx 10 -12 weeks old. As of this morning - Ammonia at 0, nitrate and nitrite at 0 and ph at 8.2. Po4 0 as of 4/3/16 and alk at 3.2 as of 4/2/16

I am running jebao rw-4 and a power head on opposite sides of the 55 gallon rectangle tank with a protein skimmer and Dry Rock from reef cleaners and live mix
Current Occupants are: 2 clown, 1 cinnamon shrimp, 2 turbo snails, 2 Astrea snails, 1 Scarlett hermit, one blue and red tip hermit.

The clowns stopped eating about 1.5-2 days ago. I did a 5 gallon water change last night and this morning tried hex shield pellets x 5-6 and pemysis frozen x 1/4 thawed cube. They acted hungry, but just watched it fall to the sand and coc ate it.

 

[Duke4Life]

When did you get the clowns and did you quarantine?

 

[Terrapin2000]

I got the clowns at my LFS and I had no other fish in the tank when I added them (I do not have a quarantine tank as of yet). I acclimated them for about 1 hr via drip in a 5 gal bucket prior to putting them in the tank

 

[Terrapin2000]

Sorry Duke, I got the clowns on Saturday, so 4 days ago

 

[redfishbluefish]

With all zero's for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, did you "feed" the tank to get the cycle going?

 

[Terrapin2000]

Yes I did "feed the tank" and also used micro bacter and and a start up bacteria prodibio

 

[Duke4Life]

Where they eating at the store?

 

[Terrapin2000]

I am assuming so, but there were a lot of them in the tank and they had just gotten them in

 

[Duke4Life]

Keep an eye on any change. A few days doesn't worry me much, especially since they're new. Anymore than that I'd be concerned about a disease as the reason.

 

[Duke4Life]

Nice setup!

 

[Terrapin2000]

Thanks Duke! And thanks for the comments as I appreciate the feedback! read in the forums that if they are near the top they may be looking for O2, so I am pumping some air in some tubing in there at the moment, but what would cause 02 depletion ... It seems unlikely to me. One is shimmying a bit, but I have also read that the subservient one will do that. Could be ich? If so, how would I treat it?

 

[Duke4Life]

Thanks Duke! And thanks for the comments as I appreciate the feedback! read in the forums that if they are near the top they may be looking for O2, so I am pumping some air in some tubing in there at the moment, but what would cause 02 depletion ... It seems unlikely to me. One is shimmying a bit, but I have also read that the subservient one will do that. Could be ich? If so, how would I treat it?

Could be a wide range of things, especially when it comes 2 diseases. Check the disease forum, @Humblefish has some great stuff there. Clownfish are crazy anyway lol
But what typically happens is the copper used at a lot of stores wears off and that's when issues if present are noticed. This is why I go after fish that have been there a few weeks, or have special ordered, and I always quarantine.

 

[Salt It Away]

Virtually every fish I've added didn't eat for a couple three days. My clowns were no exception. They're getting used to their new digs. The 1mm TheraA pellets are a good choice for clowns. They will come around.

 

[Humblefish]

With all zero's for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, did you "feed" the tank to get the cycle going?

^^This. If your tank was fully cycled, you should at least be seeing a trace of nitrate. Unless this is a zeovit system.

 

[29biotrial]

I'm not the smartest person on here and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I was doing some reading on feeding and one article made a real good point. This guy went on to say that most fish don't eat every day in the wild and even when they do eat it's not always protein packed food like we feed in our tanks. So with that being said I would not be to alarmed about a new fish not eating right away. I think it took my square side anthias about 10 days to really start eating. He's been going strong for like 6 months now.

 

[Terrapin2000]

Humblefish I am using Red Sea marine care test kit for nitrate. Also the clowns were eating like crazy the 1st 2 days but stopped yesterday and today so far

 

[ScottMyers123]

how are the clowns doing today?

 

[Terrapin2000]

Still not eating... I had a spike in ammonia today, but did a 10 gallon change to rectify it and it is looking like it did. I luckily had off today so I spotted it quick

 

[Naiad]

How did your cycle run? If they have stopped eating that is a sign of stress. Can you get a water test at your lfs to just make sure your kits are correct? I would also look into a qt and common parasite symptoms as this may be why they stopped. What does the poop look like?

 

[Terrapin2000]

I haven't seen any poop per see yet. I am assuming the LFS could test... I have the guy trying to help me too. He was telling me
Look up dosing the pe mysis with garlic. I was looking that up now to find out how.