Smaller clown fish might be having issues

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Anyone have any thoughts?

As I had mentioned, the first step was to separate the two fish to help ensure it wasn't a dominance issue. Now that it is isolated, it is still behaving oddly. It isn't breathing fast and it doesn't show any excess mucus. That rules out most external parasites. That would also explain why the other clown is symptom free. I don't have any "magic bullet" treatment to offer, but I would wait a day and see if it starts eating.

Jay

 

[cypike]

Ok will do

 

[cypike]

Tried to see if he would eat this morning but no luck. Here’s a video of what he does.

 

[Renaissance corals]

Tried to see if he would eat this morning but no luck. Here’s a video of what he does.

I'm at a loss. In all my years of keeping clowns I have never seen one move like that. Honestly, I don't know if it could survive a dip if it does have parasites. I'm sorry this has happened to your beautiful little guy.

 

[Renaissance corals]

Tried to see if he would eat this morning but no luck. Here’s a video of what he does.

I do know that API test kits are notoriously inaccurate you may be reading zero ammonia, but in reality it could be much much higher. If you can do several water changes adding up to 50% total to improve the water quality as much as possible. Also, are you using RODI water?

 

[cypike]

I do know that API test kits are notoriously inaccurate you may be reading zero ammonia, but in reality it could be much much higher. If you can do several water changes adding up to 50% total to improve the water quality as much as possible. Also, are you using RODI water?

Yeah I create my own RODI water. I think the test I’m using is pretty accurate tbh. It has always spiked and moved to zero as expected when I was cycling without fish.

 

[Renaissance corals]

Yeah I create my own RODI water. I think the test I’m using is pretty accurate tbh. It has always spiked and moved to zero as expected when I was cycling without fish.

Okay so at this point that fish doesn't look like it's going to make it. I would recommend doing a quick freshwater dip and some RODI water. Start with 1 minute and see how it's doing. Don't exceed 4 minutes

Edit: do you have any medication dips on hand?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Tried to see if he would eat this morning but no luck. Here’s a video of what he does.

Sorry, other than an increase is the signs of distress, I don't see anything treatable here. The symptom are not in line with external parasites, so a FW dip isn't warranted (and besides, if it were parasites, both fish would be showing issues by now). Likewise with water quality - you can completely rule that out because the other clown is unaffected. If there was a water quality problem great enough to cause this amount of distress in a fish, both fish would be affected.

That leaves internal issues. These are less contagious (sometimes not contagious at all) but are also difficult to impossible to treat. Captive raised clownfish often suffer from genetic and developmental issues. That can result in food malabsorption (among many other issues). Clownfish can also be infected with coccidia. These are not treatable, but can also cause emaciation.

Jay

 

[cypike]

Sorry, other than an increase is the signs of distress, I don't see anything treatable here. The symptom are not in line with external parasites, so a FW dip isn't warranted (and besides, if it were parasites, both fish would be showing issues by now). Likewise with water quality - you can completely rule that out because the other clown is unaffected. If there was a water quality problem great enough to cause this amount of distress in a fish, both fish would be affected.

That leaves internal issues. These are less contagious (sometimes not contagious at all) but are also difficult to impossible to treat. Captive raised clownfish often suffer from genetic and developmental issues. That can result in food malabsorption (among many other issues). Clownfish can also be infected with coccidia. These are not treatable, but can also cause emaciation.

Jay

I think I’ll do the humane thing and put him down. I feel bad for making him suffer this long. Thanks for your help everyone!

 

[Renaissance corals]

I think I’ll do the humane thing and put him down. I feel bad for making him suffer this long. Thanks for your help everyone!

My condolences

 

[cypike]

I put him down fast, no suffering. I wonder if the big one bullied him a bit and he ran into the rocks or glass or something. That’s the only thing I can think of that makes any sense.

 

[jpgillespie2]

Do not take my word as gold. I had a clownfish do the EXACT same thing. I possibly narrowed it down to 1 of 2 things. Either A. I added too much ammonia to my tank when cycling and it wasn't processing ammonia fast enough due to my bacteria not being established enough to keep up with it (I was using bottled bacteria) or B. My RODI wasn't removing something from my tap water. My friend is a marine biologist and she asked some of her friends and they said the little flips are definitely signs of neurological issues and suggested maybe ammonia caused some hypoxia that led to brain damage. The puzzling thing was that I had one clownfish survive. I put the surviving clownfish in my brother's tank and recycled my tank and now all is well and I still have the original female clownfish and got another male and they are now a pair.

 

[cypike]

Do not take my word as gold. I had a clownfish do the EXACT same thing. I possibly narrowed it down to 1 of 2 things. Either A. I added too much ammonia to my tank when cycling and it wasn't processing ammonia fast enough due to my bacteria not being established enough to keep up with it (I was using bottled bacteria) or B. My RODI wasn't removing something from my tap water. My friend is a marine biologist and she asked some of her friends and they said the little flips are definitely signs of neurological issues and suggested maybe ammonia caused some hypoxia that led to brain damage. The puzzling thing was that I had one clownfish survive. I put the surviving clownfish in my brother's tank and recycled my tank and now all is well and I still have the original female clownfish and got another male and they are now a pair.

The only thing I can think of is that he hit his head or something because there was 0 ammonia through this whole process. Unless my RODI water had something in it idk what else it could be. The other is 100% fine and I’m still reading 0% ammonia, and just did my first water change today.

 

[jpgillespie2]

The only thing I can think of is that he hit his head or something because there was 0 ammonia through this whole process. Unless my RODI water had something in it idk what else it could be. The other is 100% fine and I’m still reading 0% ammonia, and just did my first water change today.

Probably didn't hit his head under water enough to cause that. This happened a year ago for me, but if I look back though my notes, I ended up using my brothers Hanna checker for ammonia and my water tested on and off 1-2ppm ammonia. I was using the API test kit and maybe it was wrong? I think I just rushed putting fish in. After letting my tank cycle longer and saw it was stable, I had 0 issues with fish.

 

[jpgillespie2]

Is your other fish doing fine?

 

[cypike]

Is your other fish doing fine?

Yeah the other guy is fine

 

[cypike]

Just wanted to say thanks again to the people that helped me in this thread. I ended up getting another clownfish today, and this one seems much healthier. Which leads me to believe that maybe there was something wrong with the first one. Thanks again guys.

 

[jpgillespie2]

Just wanted to say thanks again to the people that helped me in this thread. I ended up getting another clownfish today, and this one seems much healthier. Which leads me to believe that maybe there was something wrong with the first one. Thanks again guys.

Is it "getting along" with your other clown?

 

[cypike]

Is it "getting along" with your other clown?

So far so good, they seem to be ignoring each other for the most part. The white one goes after the other one just a little every so often but nothing bad (yet)

 

[jpgillespie2]

So far so good, they seem to be ignoring each other for the most part. The white one goes after the other one just a little every so often but nothing bad (yet)

Is your pair still one male, one female?