Is this normal behaviour for a new clownfish?

[BelieveInBlue]

Got 2 clowns on thursday. The black one was eating ish for a couple days but then stopped and stayed in the corner. Today he moved out of the corner, but for the last couple of hours he's hovering sideways near or above the sand. He's been breathing very rapidly but showing no other signs of disease. The other clownfish is completely normal, just not eating as voraciously as I'd like it to.

pH 8.2 ammonia 0 nitrates 5 kH 9.5 Mg 1480 Ca 490 Temp 77.6

Here's a video. Is this just part of the acclimation process or is something wrong?

 

[Turnage]

Is the other clown fish near him when he's acting this way?

 

[BelieveInBlue]

not usually, no. It'll come and go but he's mostly by himself

 

[Turnage]

Clowns that swim on their side can be a form of submission to another clown. If he's not eating that's bad and I would remove him and get him in a quarantine tank. Any other fish in the tank besides the clowns?

 

[BelieveInBlue]

No just them. Plus CUC, shrimp, corals.

 

[Turnage]

How big is the tank and age?

 

[BelieveInBlue]

32g and about 2 weeks. He's mostly on the sandbed now so I've put him into a freshwater dip. Don't have any meds on hand because Canada's apparently kind of neurotic about that. I'll report back if anything falls off.

 

[RobertTheNurse]

Just out of curiosity what test are you using?

 

[Turnage]

Yea sorry my friend. If he's now on the sandbed he basically done for. Most reefers her would say putting a fish in a 2 week old tank is wrong but I have a 32g myself and my clown was in at the 2 week mark and did great for over a year. That's until I sold his butt because he was a jerk to all my other fish.

More than likely your clown died due to stress or disease. Keep a close eye on the other clown. I would hold off untill the one month mark of the tank before adding anything else.

 

[BelieveInBlue]

API for the ammonia test. I know API readings tend to be wonky so I made stock solutions out of RO/DI water, and the colours matched. I also used Real Reef Rock, Dr Tim's One and Only, and Microbacter7 to seed the tank. Plus, none of the inverts, corals, or the other clown is showing any signs of distress, except for a turban snail that still has not opened up, but I think that was because it was clamped down onto the bucket during drip acclimation and I may have yanked on it a bit too hard to get it off the bucket.

Also, nothing came out during the freshwater dip; I checked with a magnifying glass. All it did was mess up the clowns ability to swim it seems, as it is now drifting around with the current, rather than lying on or near the sand bed.

 

[RobertTheNurse]

Ya. I would assume your ammonia is up and other readings may be different. No fault of your own, just know this by experience. How often you doing WCs?

 

[yoelf]

I got 2 clowns a little over 3 weeks ago and and the tank wasn't fully cycled they were both acting super weird first few days (swimming super odd) now everything's fine they're paired eating well and having a great honeymoon hope yours has a likewise ending

 

[BelieveInBlue]

Once a week. 5 gallons so roughly 15%. I'm pretty sure there's no ammonia considering I tested the same kit against freshly made saltwater from RO/DI water.

On the off chance that there is ammonia though I would've figured the corals/hermits/shrimp would've showed some signs first, considering the black clown's been breathing heavily for a few days now. If it matters, I have frogspawn, hammer coral, candy cane, favia, acan lord, and zoas in the tank and they all look great.

Or at the very least, shouldn't the other clown also show some signs, since they came from the same store?

 

[RobertTheNurse]

Once a week. 5 gallons so roughly 15%. I'm pretty sure there's no ammonia considering I tested the same kit against freshly made saltwater from RO/DI water.

On the off chance that there is ammonia though I would've figured the corals/hermits/shrimp would've showed some signs first, considering the black clown's been breathing heavily for a few days now.

Or at the very least, shouldn't the other clown also show some signs, since they came from the same store?

Your testing using API. If your adding that much live stock to a 2 week old tank you should be changing 10-15% water at LEAST every 2 days. Anywho...its ammonia. Final answer. Best of luck.

 

[yoelf]

Once a week. 5 gallons so roughly 15%. I'm pretty sure there's no ammonia considering I tested the same kit against freshly made saltwater from RO/DI water.

On the off chance that there is ammonia though I would've figured the corals/hermits/shrimp would've showed some signs first, considering the black clown's been breathing heavily for a few days now. If it matters, I have frogspawn, hammer coral, candy cane, favia, acan lord, and zoas in the tank and they all look great.

Or at the very least, shouldn't the other clown also show some signs, since they came from the same store?

Crustaceans can handle higher levels of certain parameters then most fish especially ones without scales.
So this might not be the case

 

[yoelf]

If it is ammonia adding a binding agent like prime will slow it down for a bit and let the nitrobactor catch up I would do that after a water change.
Even if you don't think it's ammonia it can only help at this point.
Good Luck

 

[BelieveInBlue]

Your testing using API. If your adding that much live stock to a 2 week old tank you should be changing 10-15% water at LEAST every 2 days. Anywho...its ammonia. Final answer. Best of luck.

I cycled the tank from 1.0ppm ammonia down to zero, and from research it seems most fish/corals/inverts wouldn't produce anywhere close to that amount of ammonia per day even combined.

Crustaceans can handle higher levels of certain parameters then most fish especially ones without scales.
So this might not be the case

What about corals? I was always under the impression that they're much more sensitive to ammonia than fish, or am I wrong there too?

If it is ammonia adding a binding agent like prime will slow it down for a bit and let the nitrobactor catch up I would do that after a water change.
Even if you don't think it's ammonia it can only help at this point.
Good Luck

Good idea. I will do that just in case.

 

[yoelf]

Yes as far as I know ammonia is toxic to just about anything in a tank ( including corals) but their counterpart NO2 nitrite is needed by the corals symbiotic alga and doesn't affect corals.
I'm just not sure what else can make a clown that's pretty hardy act like that after a few days signs say it the effect of water parameters wish I could help more.

 

[BelieveInBlue]

dang it. Guess I'll have to keep a close eye on everything. Doubt the black clown is going to pull through but pretty much everything else looks good, so here's hoping...

 

[BelieveInBlue]

Update:

The little guy is still alive. He can't get off the substrate, but he manages to stay upright and can fight the current for the most part.

Just got back from my LFS where I got the clowns. I tested ammonia again this morning and it came up zero, so I brought in some water for them to test. They used Salifert and Red Sea and got zero both times. So either it's not that or the tank fully cycled again overnight. They couldn't figure it out either.

I did figure out what's going on with the tectus snails though. The store uses copper in the fish systems as a preventative, and I put all the bags into one to drip acclimate together, which exposed the snails to the copper. Oops. Won't be doing that again. Most of them came out the other side ok but one in particular seems like its not going to make it. The hermits have been eyeing it, so I'm going to keep an eye on it and remove it if if I need to.