Help with Clownfish

[Sortega]

Hello,

I currently have a Clownfish in quarantine. This is about his third week in the system.

The first week I started with some ich-x. Followed the directions on the box and he seemed to be ok.

After 5 days of treatment I performed two 20% water changes (2 gallons in this 10 gallon quarantine system) with carbon to get a fresh slate and monitored him. After the third day of no medication I began to observe flukes on his head. They may have been there earlier and I just missed them. At the same time he began to have this white thing growing on his mouth. It actually looks to be coming out from inside his mount.

At the same time he began to be lazy and not really moving from his one spot. At the beginning be was active swimming around the tank.

I then performed two 5 minute fresh water dips over two days. I could see the flukes falling off of him except this white thing in his mouth.

Right now I have him in the system with Prazi Pro. This is the second day of Prazi and I am afraid I might lose him. Does anybody have any thoughts what the white thing could be? I don't think it's ich or flukes. Though I am open to hear other opions.

The setup
1) 10 gallon tank
2) temp is about 78-79 F controlled by one eheim heater.
3) salinity is 1.026 SPG
4) filter is one bag of bio home ultimate bio media with a ziss Buble filter (think of a sponge filter but with a moving bio media)
5) tank was cycled with Dr.Tims

 

[Nigel35]

Does it have heavy, labored breathing? If their is little to no movement it might be fluke... hmmmmm

 

[Sortega]

Does it have heavy, labored breathing? If their is little to no movement it might be fluke... hmmmmm

It does look like labored breathing. Would you recommend another freshwater bath or stick with the Prazi? I heard general cure might work as well. I think it is mostly Prazi as well with some other mixture added in.

 

[Nigel35]

I would think that methylene blue would do the trick. I had a similar problem and that's what was recommended. Here are Big G's instructions

Dosing instructions for using 2.303% Methylene Blue solution:

1) 30 min bath (preferred): 1 teaspoon (5 ml) per 5 gallons.

2) In a quarantine tank: 1 teaspoon (5 ml) per 10 gallons every other day for 10 days with water changes before each treatment.

 

[Sortega]

I would think that methylene blue would do the trick. I had a similar problem and that's what was recommended. Here are Big G's instructions

Dosing instructions for using 2.303% Methylene Blue solution:

1) 30 min bath (preferred): 1 teaspoon (5 ml) per 5 gallons.

2) In a quarantine tank: 1 teaspoon (5 ml) per 10 gallons every other day for 10 days with water changes before each treatment.

Interesting. I'll see if I can track some of this down . There seems to be a few versions methylene blue made by different companies. Would you happen to have a link to which one you used? I would definitely like to check this out

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

How has the ammonia level been?

The white thing in its mouth may just be from an injury, flukes don't live in that location.

Can you measure its respiration rate for me? Just count the number of gill beats in 15 seconds and multiply by 4. Do this a couple of times to get an average.

Jay

 

[Sortega]

Hello all,

I figure I would give an update on what happened. It has been a long journey but I was able to restore the clownfish back to health. I ended up using Seachem Paraguard. I began dosing the QT tank daily for close to a month. The clownfish began to recover after about 2 weeks or so or treatment.

The who process started with a methylene blue dip. I followed the directions on the bottle and was able to calculate a dos concentration of ~2ml for 1 quart (the size of my bath container). I did go a bit aggressive on the dip. I actually did a freshwater dip mixed with methylene blue and I kept the clownfish in this bath for 2 minutes. Once I did that, the white thing on his mouth fell off.

Once I got rid of that, he was still breathing rapidly until I began the Paraguard treatment. I was performing 3 gallon water changes (QT tank was 10 gallons) every 3 days for the duration of this month long treatment.

I still don't fully know what the clownfish had. I would guess it was a mixture of flukes and Brooke. But honestly I could never really tell.

Based on this personal experience, I would highly recommend the use of Seachem Paraguard. Litterally nothing else I tried had any affect.

 

[Nigel35]

Great to hear that it is well!