Sick clown, please help!

[aircrane1]

My clown is breathing hard, swimming poorly (leaning, up and down the upper half of the tank, just erratic and seemingly with difficulty). His color is pale and his fins are not erect and showing signs of fraying. His mate is just fine.

Both were put in the tank on 1-11-19. New tank established mid December with 70 lbs of TB live rock so there was no cycle. 54 gallon DT, Nyos skimmer working ok. Only other animals in the tank are a lawnmower blenny, small clean up crew of snails and hermits. An elegance coral, aussie torch and a goniopora. 10 % WC weekly and recently had a fairly bad algae bloom of various types 5 or 6 days ago. I started dosing NoPox four days ago but as soon as I saw him feeling bad I stopped it. Algae declined as I cut the lights to near nothing at the same time as the dosing.

Parameters as of tonight;
Ammonia is 0.0, Nitrate is 0.2 (WC two days ago) Nitrite 0.01, Salinity 1.025 Temp stays betwen 77.5 and 78. Original Nitrate was near 50 prior to NoPox start (we were gone for four days and did not se the algae bloom start).

I did not QT them prior to putting in the DT but will get a small one set up no later than Saturday....really hope he makes it. This is my Wifes first exposure to a tank like this and she has already grown attached to the little guys.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Tried to get a pic of him but just couldn't get one that was of any use.

 

[Humblefish]

What kind of algae bloom? Dinoflagellates by any chance? Those can release toxins into the water which sometimes negatively affect fish.

 

[aircrane1]

No, not dinos. Green algae on glass, substrate and rocks with a little of what looks like brown hair algae.

 

[Humblefish]

No, not dinos. Green algae on glass, substrate and rocks with a little of what looks like brown hair algae.

Well, it's sounding like a fish disease is more plausible then.

First thing I would do is give the affected clownfish a 5 min FW dip: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/freshwater-dip.248898/

Look for flukes (pics are in that link). If no flukes show but the clownfish looks better/breathes easier following the FW dip, odds are you are dealing with velvet or brook.

 

[aircrane1]

Well dang, we lost him. Happened over the course of four to six days (we were out of town for a few days) but he really went downhill fast the last two days. Really crazy how sad we are about it. The clown pair were our first two fish in this new tank. His mate is seemingly doing just fine but we will keep a close eye on her. I'm posting a pic of the deceased in the event somebody can tell anything from it.

 

[Philipgonzales3]

Well dang, we lost him. Happened over the course of four to six days (we were out of town for a few days) but he really went downhill fast the last two days. Really crazy how sad we are about it. The clown pair were our first two fish in this new tank. His mate is seemingly doing just fine but we will keep a close eye on her. I'm posting a pic of the deceased in the event somebody can tell anything from it.

Sorry for your fish loss :-(

 

[Humblefish]

Drop the body in freshwater (tap is fine) to still check for flukes!

 

[aircrane1]

Drop the body in freshwater (tap is fine) to still check for flukes!

I did what you suggested, dipped him for 6 or 7 minutes, no flukes. I did notice a very small injury on one side but it doesn't seem like it would be fatal, especially since he has been showing signs of ill health for days. I just don't have the experience yet to really nail this down but Iwould really like to figure it out. As sad as it is we want it to be a learning experience, maybe we can prevent a loss like this in the future.