sick clownfish

hi everyone,
i got 2 juvi clowns today (about 1 inch) and one of them appears sick. i havent got a quarintine set up (but can borrow one thats unseeded) .....learning the hard way!

lessson 1 - listen to your lfs! the clowns just came in as i walked in the door....they advised me to wait until they had settled in but i was trying to get them for a couple of weeks and was impatient...

at the moment all thats in the tank are the 2 clowns, 1 salaris blennie and the clean up crew. its a simple fish and invert system.

i gave them both freshwater dips with meth blue for less than 1 minute...(untill they started trying to jump out) but the clown in question still has the marks.

CAN anyone id whats wrong with this clown and reccommend a course of action? it seems like 2 different things....see pic below

thanks for all your help
:oops:

Dear Oscar,
adding fish to an invert tank is very much like russian rootlet, if you do not have an quarantine tank, all the fish should be introduced first, I believe one should put a 50% dosage medicine in a tank for 7 days after adding new fish regardless if you see any thing wrong with them, unless of course you friend up the road has given you some fish that has been in his tank for a long time. copper based treatments are hard to monitor unless you are testing the actual level of copper as the rocks and coral sand tends to very quickly remove it. Fish diseases can be simplify into 3 classes, virus (untreatable for hobbyist), bacterial (untreatable for hobbyist) and Everything else, this last one is a big generalisation, but who cares if the clowns have type X, or type Z, they are are all preventable and treatable by any brand of treatment that has formalin(colourless) and machalite green(green), these chemicals are normally in freshwater white spot treatments, which would be administered every 2 days, while at the same time keeping a low dosage of the traditional copper. I think if you do this the mark around the gill pectoral fin will go away. The distinctive mark on the tail, looks like a virus, this is very common on Philippine fish in Winter, as this come out if they are kept in a holding tank of low temperatures, the freshwater glass fish can get the same problem, by netting him and cutting just the part of the tail that has that, and then keeping him (it is a male A. ollaris) at 27C will do the trick. Incidentally when you have full stocked your FISH ONLY tank, run carbon in the filter before adding inverts, then never add any more fish.

ok thanks sean,
couple of more questions.
- is this marine ich?
- is he not too small to be sexed a male? he is less than an inch.
- is this gonna spread through my tank?
- any tips on seeding a quarintine quickly?
(medicating the main system is not an option as its full of live rock)

thanks again for your help

I am not sure, if I zoom in on the photo, it loses definition, if you took the photo originally at high def could you post a close up of the pectoral fin area, as I cant see. (The white bit on the tail is not ich, its a virus). I have experiment treating marines with inverts and have found straight formalin (used to balm human stiffies) can work. Although I only tried in Florida on live rock and the indigenous anemone condalaics anemone, I have not tried it on Pacific anemones or live coral.
I did not know how big your fish is, as you know all clowns start as males, when they change sex (the boss male) the change shape and are much more full bodied, and easy to spot females.
When you mean seeding an quarantine tank, you mean just taking out a percentage of you filter media from the main tank? Its as simple transferring a handful of volcanic gravel from your trickle filter.
Just summarising when you get an disease, don't get too hung up finding which disease it is, as if you treat with copper (oddiumuim) and Formalin and malachite (ich) you are treating the full spectrum of "treatable diseases". When you have a flu, and the doctor gives you antibiotics, 9 times out of 10 one is not interested to know if it one has gram positive or gram negative, as long at it works its fine.

this is the best i could do .... i can prob get a macro lens tomorrow and get a closer up shot.


re : seeding....i dont have a filter in the display tank...i rely on the live rock. i have a chamber i can throw a sponge into but i imagine itll take a couple of weeks to seed.

-re virus....is this likely to spread to the other clown?

-would hypo work on these ailments?

- lastly what s best to feed clowns of this size? they go mad for cyclopesze but i d like to vary their diet a bit.

thanks again sean for all your help

Thanks for the photo, it looks like you took it with a low mega camera, so blowing up the photo does not help. Can I ask you with the naked eye can you see any small white spots when one looks at a 5 degree angle to the body?
Regardless this is no real mystery, half of Philippine maroon clowns have this on arrival in the wholesalers. I recall hitting the fish only tanks with formalin and malachite green every 2 days constantly, the basic ingredient of modern fresh water ich white spot treatment. What we are probably see is the white spot as some kind of protozoa ( a quick and safe skin scrap and your sons hobby microscope could confirm exactly what it is, the larger smudgy blemish is an erosion of the skin, which is a by product of the spots.
If you leave the fish without treatment it will spread and the future is bleak.
I do not agree using the life rock as your main form of converting NH3 to NO2 and then to NO3, the problem is after feeding there is an ammonia peak, so the bacteria have to work hard attached to the rocks to bring it down quickly. When I feed my fish about 2 minutes after there is a distinctive sweet smell in the air, this is due to a massive over size trickle filter that gets to work straight away, with your system I do not think you could notice a difference of the smell in your living room. It is a bit like a drunk man will smell more of drink with 2 lungs instead of one lungs, except your drunk man has virtually just a midgets lungs.
Don't believe what you read about using the life rocks as a sole source of bacterial filtration system, get that ice cream container above your tank with volcanic rock and a slow flow tee off from your pump flowing through it.
Any marine fish that has a large mouth in relation to its body including clowns are going to be very easy to feed, just avoid floating dry foods, they hate the buoyancy problems, post feeding and it is a form of stress.
Small sinking cichlid pellets are great, just remember to keep them in the freezer. In hot countries everyone keeps their corn flakes in their freezer, when you take them out they are dry and not cold, (as there should not be any water content. Try it your self and you will have fresher snap crackle and pop!!!
I don't know the trade names for the fish medicines has I was more used to buying the raw materials and making it up my self, treating saltwater fish in an wholesale as big as 1200M2 (Manila Aquatics Tampa Florida)would of got a bit expensive if one bought commercially prepared ones.

ok sean thanks....will sort out qt tomorrow....if the filter is not seeded would 50 percent daily water changes make it safe?

-have you used hypo salinity with or instead of meds?

i think the live rock relys on NOT over feeding at all to be a success.

What is hypo salinity?
I assume you mean a fresh water bath and adjusting the pH to 8 for 12 minutes may be 9 mins if it is a small clown fish.

Yes I guess if the live rock filter is to work one will have to have a very understocked tank.

I forgot to say the malachite green not only kills protozoa, but also fungus, so just in case the white faded patch is getting as secondary infection leaving the fish over night (8hours) in a non filter tank at twice the normal dosage is the same as a normal continuous dosage. this is called "dipping a fish"

hypo is dropping the salinity to 1.009 (in qt) aparently ich cant survive and its also easy for the fish.

are you familiar with myxazin?
they dont give the ingredients but its an anti bac that can be used for marine whitespot (its green also).
re freswater dips.... i tried this with meth blue but after about 30 seconds he started trying to jump out of the bucket. (i had an airstone in it for oxygen).
should i have forced him to stay in it for a few minutes?

This product my have mild anti bacterial claims, as if it has methylene blue its stops bacterial growth which is of course very bad for a bacterial filter, that is why when marine are shipped for 24 hours plus it is in the shipping water, to stop the water going milky, but it is not an antibiotic. It does not kill bacteria inside a fish (Methylene blue has been proven to aid fish resperation, (another reason it is added to the packing water when shipping), if the pH is lower (fresh water dip)the fish cannot take in O2 (this is know as the borr effect) fish can go 1.6ph in the positive direction but only 1.3ph in the negative direction, as the is a pH pump that forces the O2 through the membrane of the lamina of the gill, if the product has a green colour its has malachite green, and that is good, I am a bit disappointed thir claim are a bit mis leading as one cannot sell anitbiotics legally in pet store in Europe (U.S.A yes)

the ph of the freswater bath was 8.2 .... used the proper ph buffer. do u think i should dip him again and force him to stay in for a few minutes?

You are suppose to do it for 15 minutes, but I do not think a juvenile fish of that size could take more than 9 minutes, do it in the dark and do not feed him on the day, even if it works repeat it in 7 days as a follow up.

Its a pity you do not have a 5 gallon brewing bucket with tank water and a heater over night at twice the normal dose of treatment as it would be less stressful.