Even after eating the same food for 11 yrs? They've been healthy since day 1, until now. They were just little babies when I got them, I fed them other frozen food at first. I didn't know brine shrimp wasn't great.
Yes, he looks terrible and he eats a bunch. The female is so much bigger and fatter/normal looking. The Kole tang looks totally fine too, both appear healthy. I can't figure out why he is in such bad shape.That's about the thinnest clown I've ever seen.
The drawn out long killer of 'fish tuberculosis' is difficult to diagnose. One of its most notable characteristic is weight loss. I tried to look for it under the microscope in my lineatus tang (see early post), but could not find it. I was sure the fish got proper nutrition and wasn't stressed (to the best of my knowledge -- but who knows).
Adult brine shrimp are usually harvested from water having a higher salinity than reef water. Our ornamental marine fishes never ate them in the wild. They are not actually marine pods. Baby brine shrimp on the other hand are much more nutritious. The older they get, the less nutritional value they provide.
I also try not to put my hands in the water, I have gloves if I need to. Kind of freaks me out that humans can catch it, is it only through cuts on hands? So my fish isn't going to survive this, what happens to the female if he dies?The drawn out long killer of 'fish tuberculosis' is difficult to diagnose. One of its most notable characteristic is weight loss. I tried to look for it under the microscope in my lineatus tang (see early post), but could not find it. I was sure the fish got proper nutrition and wasn't stressed (to the best of my knowledge -- but who knows).
The likelihood that your clownfish has this condition is high. As far as treatment in ornamental marine fish, nothing much works. Prevention is the best course.
The Mycobacteria sp. is found almost all the time in marine aquarium. But fish don't usually succumb to it. (I think last I remember is about 3 in a million). Noteworthy is that, since it is almost everywhere in water, fish tend to succumb to it when stressed. It is an opportunistic microbe. My thesis was done on Mycobacterium africanum (human infection).
Mycobacteria is the reason I never put my bare hand(s) in my aquaria.
I forgot to answer all questions. There is no aggression going on, they all get along just fine. I only have 3 fish in a 215g tank...I know, it's ridiculous, but I haven't stocked it and the fish I've bought over the years, most never made it out of quarantine, some arrived DOA, feeling defeated, I never bought anymore. The Kole tang is about 4yrs old. This picture was the best one that shows just how terribly thin Clyde (of Bonnie and Clyde) has become, I've been watching him eat, swim around and laying on the sand like he's exhausted, I assume he's weak because he's so thin. I don't know what to do for him and I've been worried that separating them would surely stress him out and he'd die in QT. He looks like an old man..
The most frequent entry into humans from the home aquarium is vis-a-vis cuts. The 'cuts' can be a small bleeding finger nail entry or papercut, to the more obvious knife cuts.
I would never give away or sell the female, they were my first SW fish, she's also around 11yrs old. I have another pair of black & white clowns in a smaller tank. I tired putting them in the big tank on the opposite side years ago when I got them, to see if they could all co exist, but they insisted on going over to the spot the orange clown had already established as theirs! I watched them, at first they got along, but then one of the black & white ones seems interested in the female orange and abandoned his own mate, maybe too young to have bonded yet...and the male orange clown was being chased away...so within 2 days they were pulled out of there and put back in a smaller tank. I don't think I want anymore fish, when the ones I have, live out their lives, I think I'm done....I know this could be many years away, so I'm not buying anymore fish.
