Parasite on Clownfish gill, lathargic, not hungry?

Humblefish · Sep 5, 2016

@Frop Looks like internal parasites to me, metro is what you want. Prazi will sometimes clear these as well but not always.

Ocelaris said:
Metroplex is formulated for internal parasites, so you'd have to soak food and feed it to them, assuming they're still eating.

Just to clarify, Metroplex can also be dosed directly into the water - the same as General Cure. The fish will ingest some of the medicine when he drinks the water, albeit at a lower concentration. Food soaking is just the better way to go for intestinal worms, because the medication then passes directly through the gut where the little jerks are living.

Ocelaris · Sep 5, 2016

Picked up both api general cure and metroplex/focus and the tang in the display tank is eating the soaked pellets like to champ. The clowns in the hospital tank aren't eating, even brine shrimp, but hopefully they regain their appetite soon and can partake in the soaked pellets soon.

Ocelaris · Sep 6, 2016

Yellow tang in the main tank is eating the med soaked pellets like a champ. One clown is eating a little, the other not so much. I've tried mysis and soaked pellets, should I try something else or give it another day? Neither clown is interested in black worms.

melypr1985 · Sep 6, 2016

Ocelaris said:
Yellow tang in the main tank is eating the med soaked pellets like a champ. One clown is eating a little, the other not so much. I've tried mysis and soaked pellets, should I try something else or give it another day? Neither clown is interested in black worms.

You could try adding a drop of garlic to the mix. Something to mask the taste and smell of the meds. It might help getting them started eating well again.

Ocelaris · Sep 8, 2016

No real improvement for the clowns, the tang hasn't seemed to have any issues. The smaller clown is eating but the larger isn't eating much of all. That is after the 2 rounds of API General care. I went looking for garlic liquid at petsmart, but no dice. I saw some tetracycline, which is gram positive and negative, but apparently not very effective in salt water; but gave it a shot tonight as well as lowering the salinity to 1.021. Can I just crush some garlic and mix with the food to impart the flavor?

Is there anything else I can try or should I just continue with metroplex as the API General is done now. Would a formalin bath help or hurt?

Humblefish · Sep 8, 2016

Ocelaris said:
Is there anything else I can try or should I just continue with metroplex as the API General is done now. Would a formalin bath help or hurt?

I would stay the course with Metroplex. The key here is to keep watching the fish's poop (as gross as I know that sounds.) So long as its white & stringy, keep dosing or food soaking Metroplex. A formalin bath would offer no benefit in this situation.

Ocelaris · Sep 8, 2016

Humblefish said:
I would stay the course with Metroplex. The key here is to keep watching the fish's poop (as gross as I know that sounds.) So long as its white & stringy, keep dosing or food soaking Metroplex. A formalin bath would offer no benefit in this situation.

Great, thanks. No stringy white poop for a few days. The larger clown fish just hasn't eaten much so I'll focus on that. Not sure how long he can go without eating much.

melypr1985 · Sep 8, 2016

Ocelaris said:
Not sure how long he can go without eating much.

as long as he's eating something he'll be fine for a bit. If you can crush some garlic and use the juice that comes out to flavor the food, that would probably work. We don't want to do this forever, but just to get him eating the medicated food.

Ocelaris · Sep 15, 2016

Unfortunately the larger one perished today. Very sad that I couldn't do anything to save him. The little one is still eating quite a bit although his fins are looking more ragged. I'm thinking this is lymphocystis from the research I've been doing and with the progression of the disease. No stringy poop or anything from the little one, just white bulges on his side and now fins. I've been feeding him vitamin soaked pellets and mysis and dropped the salinity to 1.020.

Since he's eating well, what else can I do? I can continue the metroplex, but the white growths on his scales and fins aren't really receding.

Ocelaris · Sep 27, 2016

The little one continued down the same path and stopped eating and passed away last Sunday. Sad day. It's going to take a while for me to get over this. I really feel terrible for not being able to help them.

I think the fish may have never been as healthy as I imagined they were. Thinking back it was almost a challenge to get them eating in the display tank; and I get the impression clown fish are supposed to be fairly friendly and they pretty much only sulked in the corner. I'll be self reflecting on what they went through in quarantine, and I'm going to have all the recommended meds for the next fish. The Yellow tang is happy and healthy as ever, loves his selcon pellets like nobody's business, just needs some friends now; but I'm going to give it a little while.