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my clownfish is not doing well. i am afraid it is dying
Last Post 10-30-2009 08:14 PM by youpey. 2 Replies.
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youpeyUser is Offline
Plankton
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10-29-2009 06:07 PM
    DAY 1
    Let me start with i had a clown that died from not eating. ever since i got it, it would never eat. this clown is from the same place. it is about 1 inch big

    my occ clown has been doing great until tonight. he had been eating a ton soince i got rods food. I have had him for 3 weeks now

    tonight i thought he was hosting my frag cup, he was swimming right by it. i went to feed them, and he didnt move from the cup. normally he attacks the food. this time he didnt care. the other clown tore up the food. since the other one didnt bother eating, my other clown at all of it.

    the clown that didnt eat looks like he has a full belly, but he didnt eat anything today. he is just swimming over the cup. normally i have seen clown hosting things they kind of swim back and forth, and up and down. he is just flapping his side fins and kind of bobbing side to side, kind of like he is drunk.

    he has no spots/marks on his body anywhere, his fins arent torn up, they are in perfect shape and his coloring is fine

    when i open the lid for feeding time, they both typically swim up to the top. the clown that ate did that, but this one didnt.

    i checked my numbers with my test kits
    i show 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, ph is 8.2, nitrate i am not positive because i always get different results. i just did a water change on saturday so i am sure they are fine. my salinity is 1.023 (it has always been that)

    had he eaten, i wouldnt have thought anything except maybe he was hosting the cup...only he didnt eat, which is not like him. i feed 1 time per day.

    i hope this is enough info.

    Day 2
    It survived the night, but still he would not eat. i put in the food and he wanted no part of it. he is back in teh same spot. still no spots or marks, no fighting. it did do the shakes when giving up dominance.

    his belly doesnt look full anymore. he swam to the top to get food, when i put it in, he didnt eat it, he didnt care about it, just went back to that spot.

    if anyone has any ideas, i really want my clowns to live

    ChristineWilliamsUser is Offline
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    --
    10-30-2009 09:34 AM
    Ok, so my first and completely unhelpful question is this: why would you buy the same fish from a store that sold you a sick one?

    (off soapbox).

    So at this point with one down, and no eating, you should be in triage mode. We could debate back and forth for a week about what the exact cause of illness is here, but by then you might have a dead fish, so here are your options:

    1. Take a guess that it is internal parasites and treat for this (plenty of medications readily available at LFS; look for Praziquantel). I am not implying that there is any great evidence for internal parasites, but there isn't a whole lot of evidence that it is something else, AND the treatment won't hurt. If you can put the fish in a quarantine tank this is your best bet.
    2. The QT tank will also allow you to keep a close eye on water quality as you feed him like crazy--soak foods in Selcon and garlic juice, use live foods if you can...anything he will eat. Vitamin B12 is supposed to work as an appetite stimulant; my experience is that in order for you to get a therapeutic dose in the tank it is nearly impossible BUT if you can get the fish to eat a little something, adding a bunch of crushed dissolved B12 tablets to the food is helpful (this works for tube feeding fish too).

    So--how do things look today?
    youpeyUser is Offline
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    10-30-2009 08:14 PM
    thanks for the response. i dont know what its problem is, but it ate like a pig again today. it is swimming around like normal, and not acting at all like it was for the few days it wasnt doing well.

    it was showing agression to the other clown like it was before it was sick. it isnt being overly aggressive, just normal clownfish male/female dominance.

    the only thing i can think of, is i added new lights to the tank, maybe it was stressing from the new lights, i dont know. it is doing great now.

    i have been keeping a close eye on her/him since this first happened, and i havent slept because i was so worried. some people dont understand, but i love my clowns like other people love their cats/dogs.


    the reasoning for me buying a clown from the same store, the first clown wouldnt eat but i think it may have been that it didnt really like the food.  i assumed it was my fault with feeding them the wrong stuff (first i tried blood worms, then formula 2 frozen, then formula 2 pellets) it didnt like any of those. the second clown ate all of it though,
    the clowns in the store were probably too young at the store. they were less the 1 inch when i bought them, they are about 1 inch now. i think that might be part of the problem too
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