Clown fish help.

[IveLostContact]

Hi all! New here! Been reading lots of useful information. Wanted to see what you think my clowns may have. We set up a 72 gallon fluval tank kit 2 months ago. 4 clown fish. Let it bloom, cycle, got a cleaner shrimp and 11 hermit crabs. Everything went great. All was happy. Water tests fine. So a little over a month in, probably 2 weeks after the bloom we added two little Pygmy hawkfish. We didn't put them in a quarantine tank unfortunately. Well, 18 hours later ish one doesn't make it. We start noticing white spots. So we call the store where everything has come from so far, they tell us to drop the salinity to 1.091 maybe? My wife knows the exact number, I could be way off. Then raise the temperature to 81. Leave it that way for about 7-10 days. We also added a fluval in line UV kit to the return. We thought it was ich due to the way it looked on the hawks. Well, a week later the other hawk passed away. Now the clowns are starting to look a bit weird. About 4-5 days ago, the tiny clown died. The other 3 big ones are still eating and acting fine. The tiny one might have been a 3rd of their size. Any ideas? Where we should go from here? A fresh water dip, and qt seems to be the logical choice. Just looking for a little guidance. Don't want to stress the fish and do anything unnecessary.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi all! New here! Been reading lots of useful information. Wanted to see what you think my clowns may have. We set up a 72 gallon fluval tank kit 2 months ago. 4 clown fish. Let it bloom, cycle, got a cleaner shrimp and 11 hermit crabs. Everything went great. All was happy. Water tests fine. So a little over a month in, probably 2 weeks after the bloom we added two little Pygmy hawkfish. We didn't put them in a quarantine tank unfortunately. Well, 18 hours later ish one doesn't make it. We start noticing white spots. So we call the store where everything has come from so far, they tell us to drop the salinity to 1.091 maybe? My wife knows the exact number, I could be way off. Then raise the temperature to 81. Leave it that way for about 7-10 days. We also added a fluval in line UV kit to the return. We thought it was ich due to the way it looked on the hawks. Well, a week later the other hawk passed away. Now the clowns are starting to look a bit weird. About 4-5 days ago, the tiny clown died. The other 3 big ones are still eating and acting fine. The tiny one might have been a 3rd of their size. Any ideas? Where we should go from here? A fresh water dip, and qt seems to be the logical choice. Just looking for a little guidance. Don't want to stress the fish and do anything unnecessary.

Salinity 1.091??
The clowns have brooklynella disease and will need treatment. Hawk seems to have ich and will need a separate treatment
The clowns can remain and be treated with ruby rally pro however they may have been exposed to ich which you will have to watch them for
Hawk in a separate tang will need coppersafe at treatment level 2.25 for a full 30 days monitoring copper level with a reliable copper test kit such as Hanna brand

 

[IveLostContact]

Salinity 1.091??
The clowns have brooklynella disease and will need treatment. Hawk seems to have ich and will need a separate treatment
The clowns can remain and be treated with ruby rally pro however they may have been exposed to ich which you will have to watch them for
Hawk in a separate tang will need coppersafe at treatment level 2.25 for a full 30 days monitoring copper level with a reliable copper test kit such as Hanna brand

Appreciate the reply! Unfortunately the hawks didn't make it. The last one perished a little under a week ago. We thought the maybe the issue with clowns was their slime coat due to lowering the salinity, but after the little guy perished a few days ago I don't believe that to be the case. The owner of the store said that's how the kill stuff off in a tank without corals. The drop the salinity to 1.something. My wife knows the number. Then raise the temp to 81. Supposedly this method kills off the parasites without harming the fish. They've looked like this for roughly 10 days now. I thought brooklynella killed fish fast? Is it possible they've had it for roughly 10 days now? They haven't skipped a meal. Still swimming around energetically.

 

[IveLostContact]

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[Jay Hemdal]

Appreciate the reply! Unfortunately the hawks didn't make it. The last one perished a little under a week ago. We thought the maybe the issue with clowns was their slime coat due to lowering the salinity, but after the little guy perished a few days ago I don't believe that to be the case. The owner of the store said that's how the kill stuff off in a tank without corals. The drop the salinity to 1.something. My wife knows the number. Then raise the temp to 81. Supposedly this method kills off the parasites without harming the fish. They've looked like this for roughly 10 days now. I thought brooklynella killed fish fast? Is it possible they've had it for roughly 10 days now? They haven't skipped a meal. Still swimming around energetically.

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

That looks like ich on the hawk fish and the clowns.

The store didn’t give you very good advice. Raising the water temperature only works for freshwater ick. Lowering the salt level (probably 1.019) doesn’t work either, you need to lower it to 1.009 to treat ich, and that will kill your invertebrates.

How many clowns are left?
Do you have a treatment tank?

 

[IveLostContact]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

That looks like ich on the hawk fish and the clowns.

The store didn’t give you very good advice. Raising the water temperature only works for freshwater ick. Lowering the salt level (probably 1.019) doesn’t work either, you need to lower it to 1.009 to treat ich, and that will kill your invertebrates.

How many clowns are left?
Do you have a treatment tank?

We still have the 3 large clowns left. We do not have one set up currently but we can do so. We have a fluval 9 gal fresh water all in one complete tank kit just laying around at the moment my wife managed to score for $60, and a 60ish gal cube that we haven't done anything with yet. She's waiting on drift wood for it. Both were going to be freshwater setups. I can use one for a quarantine tank for the time being.

 

[IveLostContact]

We can also go pick up a cheap open tank and pump setup I suppose. Been needing to do it anyways for a quarantine tank. We usually get our fish and supplies from a place that specializes in it but it's a 45 minute drive. Petco usually has a cheap tank sale going on every month and she has fish per rewards there. It's only 5 minutes away. So I'd imagine that would be where she'd get it from. Unfortunately I'm away for work for 3 more weeks. Also by large clowns I mean just larger than the little guy. They actually all still small fries. Maybe 2-2.5inches is the biggest.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

We can also go pick up a cheap open tank and pump setup I suppose. Been needing to do it anyways for a quarantine tank. We usually get our fish and supplies from a place that specializes in it but it's a 45 minute drive. Petco usually has a cheap tank sale going on every month and she has fish per rewards there. It's only 5 minutes away. So I'd imagine that would be where she'd get it from. Unfortunately I'm away for work for 3 more weeks. Also by large clowns I mean just larger than the little guy. They actually all still small fries. Maybe 2-2.5inches is the biggest.

Setting up a treatment tank on the fly is tricky. You’ll need something to establish the nitrogen cycle to keep the ammonia in check - bacteria in a bottle products most likely.
Can you post a video of the remaining fish?

 

[ReefGiant]

Ich eradication vs. Ich management

Ich eradication vs. Ich management The purpose of this article is to discuss the pros & cons of ich eradication and ich management, and present the best methods for implementing each. Ich eradication - Simply put, this method means doing everything possible to keep ich out of your tank. That...

humble.fish

This is the most thorough guide I’ve seen. You will need to qt and treat the fish and leave the tank fallow for some time to get rid of ich

 

[ReefGiant]

I QT all my fish with the hybrid tank method found on humble fish. I have had 100% success so far.

 

[IveLostContact]

Setting up a treatment tank on the fly is tricky. You’ll need something to establish the nitrogen cycle to keep the ammonia in check - bacteria in a bottle products most likely.
Can you post a video of the remaining fish?

I sure can. When my wife texts me this morning I'll have her send me a video when she feeds them. Within the next hour I imagine.

 

[IveLostContact]

Setting up a treatment tank on the fly is tricky. You’ll need something to establish the nitrogen cycle to keep the ammonia in check - bacteria in a bottle products most likely.
Can you post a video of the remaining fish?

 

[Freenow54]

Salinity 1.091??
The clowns have brooklynella disease and will need treatment. Hawk seems to have ich and will need a separate treatment
The clowns can remain and be treated with ruby rally pro however they may have been exposed to ich which you will have to watch them for
Hawk in a separate tang will need coppersafe at treatment level 2.25 for a full 30 days monitoring copper level with a reliable copper test kit such as Hanna brand

What is brooklynella disease and what causes it?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I can't see clearly enough in the video - can you see distinct white, salt grain sized spots on the fish? If so, that's ich. If you cannot see any spots, and the fish did not have spots earlier (like the hawkfish did) you may have Brooklynella and ich at the same time (ugh!).

Treating Brooklynella is difficult. Formalin works well, but it is toxic to people and hard to get. Can you get Ruby Reef Rally Pro? Using that as a dip and in the tank sometimes works to treat Brooklynella.

Jay

 

[IveLostContact]

I can't see clearly enough in the video - can you see distinct white, salt grain sized spots on the fish? If so, that's ich. If you cannot see any spots, and the fish did not have spots earlier (like the hawkfish did) you may have Brooklynella and ich at the same time (ugh!).

Treating Brooklynella is difficult. Formalin works well, but it is toxic to people and hard to get. Can you get Ruby Reef Rally Pro? Using that as a dip and in the tank sometimes works to treat Brooklynella.

Jay

Ordered some earlier today! Going to dose the tank and see what happens. If nothing clears up we got a 20gal and my wife is conditioning that as we speak. Should be ready in a day or so. Salinity is already done. Powe blue or whatever copper stuff is on the way as well in case they need to be moved to the QT tank. If that's the case they can live in there for 76 days I suppose.

 

[IveLostContact]

Ok, so I just wanted to come back and post an update so people weren't wondering. It's been 19 days. So when setup a quarantine tank, but ultimately didn't end up using it. Bought the copper power, and ruby stuff. As a last ditch quick resort we thought what the heck and dosed the tank with api super ich cure I believe it is. Turns the water blue. So within an hour the 3 remaining clowns started showing funny behavior. Were crashing into things. My guess is it really must have irritated the ich and they were trying to run it off. By the next evening unfortunately the largest had passed away. The remaining two were fine. So we just figured the largest was too far gone and continued the treatment. Instead of doing full doses since we had crabs/shrimp we did half doses like you would for scaleless fish. Supposed to be for 4 days, but we doubled the time up to 8 days since it was half doses. Then we used charcoal to clean/filter the tank. The fish looked better within about 4 days. None of the crabs/shrimp died. It's been 19 days now and still no signs of ich. We also have been dosing them with vitachem with their feedings. We also upped the temp to roughly mid 80s while treating. Just wanted to share in case anybody saw this thread. If the ich does indeed come back I will update this thread.