Struggling Platinum Clown

[Big Ray]

PLEASE HELP.

i have a platinum clown in my tank im new to the hobby but the tank has been up and running for about 2 months. Its the Fluval Sea 57L tank and there is only the clown and a goby in there. Got given the clown by a friend and has been doing fine until this morning. It has completely lost its colour and seems to be struggling to swim.

does anybody know what would cause this?

 

[Jilly92]

Post water params

 

[Big Ray]

Post water params

Post water params

At the moment
PH 8.3
Ammonia 0.25
nitrite 0
Nitrate 40

i have been doing small daily water changes to decrease the nitrates
And did have an ammonia spike after a death about two weeks ago but seemed to rectify that pretty quickly

 

[Jilly92]

At the moment
PH 8.3
Ammonia 0.25
nitrite 0
Nitrate 40

i have been doing small daily water changes to decrease the nitrates
And did have an ammonia spike after a death about two weeks ago but seemed to rectify that pretty quickly

What water are you using and what is salinity? What symptoms did your other fish show before it died?

 

[dedragon]

are you using tap water or RODI water? What is the salinity and is it being measured by refractometer with calibration solution? Ammonia should be zero so I would buy bottled bacteria and ammonia neutrilizer. I would use fritzyme 9 because it should do both

 

[Mav88]

Some other helpful information would be appreciated. How long have you had the clownfish? how long have you had the goby and how does it look(pic appreciated)? How long was the other fish that died in the tank, and what did that fish look like before it died? Loss of color can be associated with diet or water quality, what are you feeding and how often? This can help other people get information to help you as well.

 

[Big Ray]

are you using tap water or RODI water? What is the salinity and is it being measured by refractometer with calibration solution? Ammonia should be zero so I would buy bottled bacteria and ammonia neutrilizer. I would use fritzyme 9 because it should do both

Currently using r/o water pre mixed by my local store current salinity is at 1.024 and have been adding pure reef balance bacteria balls to my filter compartment after my water changes

 

[Big Ray]

Some other helpful information would be appreciated. How long have you had the clownfish? how long have you had the goby and how does it look(pic appreciated)? How long was the other fish that died in the tank, and what did that fish look like before it died? Loss of color can be associated with diet or water quality, what are you feeding and how often? This can help other people get information to help you as well.

Ive had the clown for about 2 weeks and the goby for about 3, the other fish was a baby regal tang which died overnight. Think it may have been a bad batch from the shop as it died within 2 days and i was refunded. Ammonia spiked after the death. Im currently feeding pellets in the morning and a mixture of frozen plankton, brine shrimp with garlic and mysis shrimp (not all at the same time)

 

[Big Ray]

I have done a bit of research and i added some PH buffer to the water which might have possibly shocked the fish? Is this right?

 

[Big Ray]

What water are you using and what is salinity? What symptoms did your other fish show before it died?

Please see my below comments

 

[Mav88]

The tang could of introduced some disease or it may be from the ammonia do you have a quarantine set up that you can put the clownfish in? How is the goby? Maybe we can get more help involved? #reefsquad

 

[Big Ray]

Goby seems completely fine, and unfortunately have no quarantine tank available

 

[dedragon]

if you have aragonite sand i wouldnt use any ph buffer unless ph was way off. It looks ammonia burned and beat up, but i would always look for velvet and brook which can easily kill a whole tank fast. Any bacteria added that much should have dealt with the ammonia, it is a small tank though. How much live rock or filter media are you running to deal with the bio load?

 

[Jilly92]

Please see my below comments

The algae on the rock looks strange. How did you cycle?

 

[Big Ray]

if you have aragonite sand i wouldnt use any ph buffer unless ph was way off. It looks ammonia burned and beat up, but i would always look for velvet and brook which can easily kill a whole tank fast. Any bacteria added that much should have dealt with the ammonia, it is a small tank though. How much live rock or filter media are you running to deal with the bio load?

There is about 18kg of live rock and ive added a fairly big bag of activated carbon (not sure if that does anything extra)

 

[Big Ray]

The algae on the rock looks strange. How did you cycle?

Bought it from some guy off of facebook, it had been in his tank for a while

 

[Jilly92]

There is about 18kg of live rock and ive added a fairly big bag of activated carbon (not sure if that does anything extra)

I would add an airstone ASAP, the look of that algae seems like something could be wrong and here's some info from an article....Some species can be toxic if ingested by fish or other animals and can kill fish indirectly by causing oxygen levels to drop below the threshold for fish survival..... Might be a toxic algae growing.

 

[dedragon]

Lol yea that is more than enough rock, what is the filtration on this setup?

 

[Big Ray]

I would add an airstone ASAP, the look of that algae seems like something could be wrong and here's some info from an article....Some species can be toxic if ingested by fish or other animals and can kill fish indirectly by causing oxygen levels to drop below the threshold for fish survival..... Might be a toxic algae growing.

Okay ill look into it ive been given some parazoryne to try incase of any parasitic infection.

 

[Big Ray]

Lol yea that is more than enough rock, what is the filtration on this setup?

Is just the stock with the tank, bio foam block with activated carbon and bio max insert. And a protein skimmer