Help, something wrong with my clown.
- Thread starter moneymm22
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moneymm22
Active Member
video doesnt seem to work, he is laying on the ground most of the time, and heavily breathing, nothing else wrong his color or skin or aything, way fine yesterday (although i didnt feed them yesterday)
jfoahs04
Well-Known Member
Is this at night or during the day? If they're not being hosted, they can sleep in a way that makes it appear as if they're dead/dying. This doesn't look like that to me, but it's worth asking.
What are your parameters (actual numbers, including temp)? Tough to guess without those figures and no marks or visible signs on the fish. The tank looks pretty new based on the lack of growth on the rocks and substrate.
What are your parameters (actual numbers, including temp)? Tough to guess without those figures and no marks or visible signs on the fish. The tank looks pretty new based on the lack of growth on the rocks and substrate.
- Have any other fish been added since you got the clowns 5 weeks ago?
- Are you registering any ammonia?
- Have you noticed any stringy white poop?
- Do you have good surface agitation to to provide oxygen?
- Have you used any sprays or aerosols near the tank?
moneymm22
Active Member
- Have any other fish been added since you got the clowns 5 weeks ago? NO
- Are you registering any ammonia? tank is 6 weeks old, seeded with fritz turbo 900, since i started checking never saw any ammonia, just checked now and it is .5, but i dosed 3 caps of prime into my 75 gallon after i saw him on the bottom.
- Have you noticed any stringy white poop? no
- Do you have good surface agitation to to provide oxygen? yes
- Have you used any sprays or aerosols near the tank? no
jk1151
Active Member
Yeah - That doesn't sound great. That happened to my first clown (right away though) and I did a fresh water dip and a ton of flukes came off him. Not 100% sure what is wrong with that poor guy but I have been told that if they can't make it through a FW dip they weren't going to make it anyways and for the most part a fresh water dip isn't all that hard on them and can be relieving if they have things in their gills or otherwise affecting them. Sorry you are dealing with this.
moneymm22
Active Member
PH 8.0
nitrates 0
nitrites 0
cycling seemed done 3 days after i dosed the fritz, i never saw ammonia in tank ever, until today .5ppm after dosing prime, so maybe it was really high before that?
should i do a fw dip?
jfoahs04
Well-Known Member
What test kit are you using? Any ammonia is problematic and can stress/kill a fish. What's the salinity? Are you manually topping off? And if so, how much/how often?
Prime is a BandAid fix at best, and if ammonia was causing the fish to act that way, it wouldn't immediately respond after the addition of Prime. In any case, I'd probably start with a pretty significant water change. And since the tank is so young, I'd test Ammonia every 24 hours and add the Prime if you get a reading (I think it only "detoxifies" ammonia for 24 hours). Prime still depends on your biofilter to remove the ammonia, so if it isn't removed quickly (like within 24hrs), it'll become toxic again.
I doubt the top off water temp is the problem. 1.5 gallons of 65 degree water in a 78 degree 75 gallon tank wouldn't be enough to cause your cause your clown to behave this way as the temperature fluctuation overall would be minimal. But if you're manually topping off like this, I'm wondering how stable your salinity is. If it's too high, or it's swung too much, that could cause your fish to behave this way.
moneymm22
Active Member
API test kit
1.025 salinity
yes manually topping off, once a day about a gallon right into the main tank.
i have an ammonia badge on and it shows 0. always and currently showing 0, have not done a test kit ammonia test in a couple weeks, it was 0 when i did, now its .5 (but again, this is only after dosing 3 cap fuls of prime, i dont knwo what it was before that)
jfoahs04
Well-Known Member
API is notorious for showing ammonia readings when there are none, but that's typically around .25, not 0.5. Most will recommend you get better test kits. That said, I wouldn't rule it out just because of the badge. I've never used them myself, but I've heard many accounts of the badges failing to read ammonia.
To be honest, I'm not sure what you can do. I personally wouldn't be doing a FW dip unless I had a better indication that there were parasites and I had a plan for treating after the dip. Otherwise it's unnecessary stress on an animal that's not well to begin with. If you can get some better/close up pics so we can get a closer look, that might help to identify something we've all missed. Otherwise it's impossible to say apart from do a water change and keep tracking ammonia. Even if the fish doesn't make it, you're going to want to see if that's a legit problem.
jk1151
Active Member
If it were me I would definitely do a WC. Cycling a tank takes awhile and maybe it never got cycled so ammonia is showing up because it wasn't ready for that much of a bio load yet? I think it should test high in ammonia at first, then nitrite and then nitrates if I remember the cycle correctly. Sorry if I misunderstood but I think cycling a tank can take a while to do correctly. I have a hard time just doing nothing so I would probably get a WC done (even going to LFS to grab salt water that is ready so I can do it now), testing ammonia frequently and I would probably do a FW dip unless you know for certain it is the ammonia causing issues. Just know that if he is already on the way out he may not make it through a FW dip. You can also do that if he dies to see if any flukes or any other parasites come of him and help diagnose what might have happened. BUT doing a FW dip might cause undue stress as well so that might not be the best solution.
moneymm22
Active Member
well i did a FW dip and dint go so well, he just layed on the floor opening his mouth but didnt see the gills moving after about 30 seconds, i tried getting him to move around, and he went nuts, then laid back down, so i did it a couple more times before removing him and putting him back in the tank, he then swam a bit and keep trying to seemingly swim at the surface, before giving up and now is laying on the sand again. rapidly breathing, not looking good at all.
moneymm22
Active Member
moneymm22
Active Member
The larger one is fine.
moneymm22
Active Member
I do see two white sesame seed things in the bottom of the bucket, but I think it just may be sand.
