Time for another update but this one is not good news. It turns out that all of my positive vibes and good luck have plateaued. My black and white clown died last night. I'm very sad and my kids will be devastated. Below are some key events from the last couple of weeks to help shed some light on the situation. At the end of the day, I don't know exactly what happened, which is the hardest part.
The tank was doing great going into the weekend exactly 2 weeks ago, absolutely nothing stood out as a negative. On March 6th, I came home with 6 new snails. The following day I noticed something strange on my black ice (the larger clown). She (presumed a female) started to get long stringy white poop and then eventually started to not eat as vigorously as she's been during feeding. I kept my eye on her for another day, nothing worse, nothing better. On March 8, I decided to proactively dose PraziPro directly into my DT knowing it is reef safe and can help with a lot (but not all) of the possible internal issues. It's often use prophylactically so I knew it would only help but not hurt. On the 2nd day, I noticed much improvement in my large clown. Besides the poop and appetite, no other signs of illness was obvious. Great color, no issues on the body, no deformity, stomach still good, etc. Even though she wasn't eating in front of me, I can tell she's picking at the pods, good signs. About 5/6 days later, I dosed the 2nd PraziPro round. I could see regular poop forming, all good!
Keep in mind that all this time, the small, black and white, clown looked fine in all aspects. For the end of the Prazi treatment, I had planned one more additional procedure. I dosed epsom salt to help move things through. I used 1 tbsp per 5G (but a bit less). This was yesterday, March 19th. Almost immediately, I saw positive signs from the fish.
Fast forward to the evening of the 19th. I noticed my small black and white lethargic and not able to swim against the flow and being tossed around. I knew this was not good. I turned off my flow (pump and PH), added an air stone and started to observe. Again, no overt signs of issues. After being tossed around, I can see his head/mouth area becoming white. The only thing I can think of is that is from swimming into rocks and the glass. I put him into a diy acclimation box and also decided to quickly do another (3rd round) of Prazi. Unfortunately, nothing worked and he passed. Again to reiterate, the clown that passed was NOT the one that had some signs of illness. Very strange.
The black ice is fine so far (acting great, no deformities or discoloration but still slow in eating but I know Prazi diminishes appetite). I'm bummed because both of these fish were quarantined, treated prophylactically and doing fine. But I brought something into the tank inadvertently and now this. The time line is useful because all of this started to happen the day after I introduced the new snails. My only thought (no proof) is that the snails carried some kind of parasite. The LFS I bought it from has fish in their invert system. In hindsight, that is a sign for future reference. Interestingly enough, I bought my initial CUC from the same place but since there was no fish, the parasite naturally died before my fish were added.
So now my goal is to make sure my black ice is healthy before considering next steps. Otherwise, everything else is fine like nothing happened.
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