Forums / TEAM Marine Depot / Disease, Health and Wellness - by Kelly Jedlicki / My new clowns in quarantine woke up sick, please help / Latest Posts

RE: My new clowns in quarantine woke up sick, please help

Puffer Queen — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 05:28:14 GMT

Thanks for the update/sharing.

Sorry to hear of the loss but happy that the other survived and is has a new mate.

RE: My new clowns in quarantine woke up sick, please help

angelfish addict — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 22:23:15 GMT

I've been away 4 awhile, so was unable 2 let u know how i went with the clown.

the sick clown passed away, and the 2nd 1 got it but I had a feeling it may be a bacterial infection due to the redness underneath the whitish growth, so i gave the clown a course of pimafix and melafix, did a 25% water change after treatment, then commenced copper for 2 weeks.

It all cleared up and the clown is now fine, I got her a new mate and they r very happily 'married' in the DT.

thanx 4 all ur time and help

RE: My new clowns in quarantine woke up sick, please help

Puffer Queen — Wed, 14 May 2008 08:15:03 GMT

angelfish addict (5/14/2008)

The bottle doesn't say the concentration of formalin but its called 'Yellow Treatment' and it's by 'Reef Life' unfortunately medications are very difficult to come by in this part of the world and that's the only formalin medication I could find.

No, I'm not enriching the brine shrimp with vitamins, but I'm feeding him garlic between feeds. But now I have managed to get him 2 eat home made brew (I minced up some shrimp,squid,mussels and garlic) and he thoroughly enjoys it.

Sorry, yes I did mean a SG of 1.009. Ok, but if he is now in hypo and I'm about to do a 1 hr formalin bath on him, should I just do it in 1.023SG water from the DT (won't the sudden shift to normal salinity affect him since u r supposed to bring them to normal salinity over the course of 1 week or more). What SG should the formalin bath water be at?

Are you treating the 'healthy' clown?

If the fish is not showing any signs of pathogens and it is in 1.009, and you are doing this prophylactically, I would use the same salinity that the clown is currently in.

I put the clowns in hypo thinking it may help with any possible parasites. Was that wrong? Should I start to bring it up?

Since you have started the treatment, I would finish it or you could have partial treatment.

For the last 2 days I haven't been treating him with any meds and now, all signs of redness are gone, the swelling of his left gill is gone, all redness and mucus on chin, nostril and mouth gone. All that is left are these white things on his gill. They look very dry.

This abnormal dryness is probably from the direct application of methylene blue.

RE: My new clowns in quarantine woke up sick, please help

Puffer Queen — Wed, 14 May 2008 08:11:27 GMT

Are the white areas - raised? Do they look like cauliflower?

RE: My new clowns in quarantine woke up sick, please help

angelfish addict — Wed, 14 May 2008 00:43:59 GMT

after the injury to the gill with the cotton bud, the gill plate was not exposed, just an open red area at the front of the gill, anyway it healed up overnight and ended up looking alot better and no more swelling or redness in the area anymore.

Maybe i should pick off the other white things left on his gill LOL, only joking.

I have not done any formalin baths on the other healthy clownfish, just the hypo.

RE: My new clowns in quarantine woke up sick, please help

angelfish addict — Wed, 14 May 2008 00:38:20 GMT

The part of the gill I'm refering to is the covering of the gill at the very front towards the head where there is something kind of like a small slit (I'm not sure what it is called).

I put the clowns in hypo thinking it may help with any possible parasites. Was that wrong? Should I start to bring it up?

RE: My new clowns in quarantine woke up sick, please help

Puffer Queen — Mon, 12 May 2008 09:25:41 GMT

angelfish addict (5/11/2008)

what would a 2ndary bacterial infection look like?

Could be red open wounds, discolorations, streaks, etc?

I've been continuing the formalin baths daily since I wasn't able to come online to check what u suggested doing next.

the red areas on his chin completely cleared up and same as his nostrils. I am using an airstone for aeration during the bath. Increased bath timing to an hour, and that's when I started seeing the results. the redness of the gills started to settle after the first half hour of the bath and looked alot better after.

The airstone is good as it will help with oxygenation.

I also did 3 FW dips for 5 mins in methylene blue and dabbed abit of methylene blue on the red areas, this also seemed to 'dry' up the mucusy areas on his chin.

FW baths of this duration will not dislodge parasites. FW baths are not recommended with open lesions as it can lead to changes is osmotic pressure - and lead to dehydration.

2 days ago (3 formalin baths later) his left gill started to swell up and there was abit of blood there and mucus or possible white worms coming out of gill. right gill is fine though.

Is it the covering of the gill or the gill plate itself??

continued treatment, yesterday as i was dabbing methylene blue on red bleeding gill the clownfish jumped and cotton bud got caught in wormlike thing. the good news wormlike thing gone (there's still 3 more like it to go)......bad news, he lost afew scales from his gill when this happened and now u can c the flesh in his gill.

Can you see his gill plate? Can you post a pic??

I won't be using the formalin until the wound heals up, but there's still more of these white things on his gill, they look very dry. I felt the 1 that came off and it feels hard and fleshy, kind of like those stringy fleshy things that grow out of ur cuticle from time to time & hurt when u get salt or citrus on them.

Is it the gill plate??

any idea what these white things are?

I'm just going 2 leave him in the QT with no treatments 4 now. the SG is 0.009.

Why are you treating with hyposalinity??

Do I need 2 do anything to the 'healthy' clownfish in the QT with him? They've been there 4 2 weeks now and she doesn't seem 2 b sick.

The healthy one was exposed so I would watch closely. Did you do formalin baths on the healthy one?

RE: My new clowns in quarantine woke up sick, please help

Puffer Queen — Mon, 12 May 2008 09:10:33 GMT

angelfish addict (5/12/2008)

Sorry, I forgot 2 answer ur questions so here r the answers.

I am using 0.15 ml of formalin in a 1 litre container, aerating it with an airstone(I even aerate afew minutes b4 I put him in there).

What is the strength/concentration of the formalin??

The brine shrimp he is eating is freeze dried.

Are you enriching this with any vitamins/supplements?

Is it safe to use the formalin in a SG of 0.009? Or is it dangerous/deadly like copper in low SG?

Do you mean 1.009?? I do not like to add two stressors at a time when treating fish. I prefer doing formalin or fw baths.

RE: My new clowns in quarantine woke up sick, please help

angelfish addict — Mon, 12 May 2008 00:45:22 GMT

Sorry, I forgot 2 answer ur questions so here r the answers.

I am using 0.15 ml of formalin in a 1 litre container, aerating it with an airstone(I even aerate afew minutes b4 I put him in there).

The brine shrimp he is eating is freeze dried.

Is it safe to use the formalin in a SG of 0.009? Or is it dangerous/deadly like copper in low SG?

RE: My new clowns in quarantine woke up sick, please help

angelfish addict — Sun, 11 May 2008 23:58:01 GMT

what would a 2ndary bacterial infection look like?

I've been continuing the formalin baths daily since I wasn't able to come online to check what u suggested doing next.

I also did 3 FW dips for 5 mins in methylene blue and dabbed abit of methylene blue on the red areas, this also seemed to 'dry' up the mucusy areas on his chin.

2 days ago (3 formalin baths later) his left gill started to swell up and there was abit of blood there and mucus or possible white worms coming out of gill. right gill is fine though.

any idea what these white things are?

I'm just going 2 leave him in the QT with no treatments 4 now. the SG is 0.009.

Do I need 2 do anything to the 'healthy' clownfish in the QT with him? They've been there 4 2 weeks now and she doesn't seem 2 b sick.

RE: My new clowns in quarantine woke up sick, please help

Puffer Queen — Mon, 05 May 2008 07:34:09 GMT

angelfish addict (5/5/2008)

Sorry, i forgot to mention that about 4 days ago while i was cleaning the detrius and left over food from the Quarantine tank, the little clownfish must have bumped his chin or scratched it on something (I don't know on what coz the tank had only the filter inside at the time) any way the red bit on his chin started bleeding for afew minutes and became very red.

The next day it was back to how it was before he bumped it.

After I used the formalin yesterday, the redness got redder but this morning it seems to have turned more pink than red and the bit of mucus that was there has decreased in size, although the redness has spread alittle further across his chin (so it's actually gotten bigger but less red). He may also be getting another red dot now on his left nostril and possibly his left gill too, the redness in those 2 sights kind of comes and goes. I realize that using the formalin for only 2 minutes isn't enough but how can I tell really if he's just jumping around coz he doen't like it in there or if there is something seriously wrong and i need to get him out NOW.

thank you

This reaction could be low oxygen levels, or possibly formalin burning? What dose are you using?

Also, if there are open or bleeding areas, formalin should not be used. If the red areas are possibly getting bigger or spreading, I would recommend starting antibiotic baths. I would suggest Nitrofurazone, Kanamycin or Minocycline (Maracyn-2). I would do 1 hour well aerated baths daily for at least 7 - 10 days.

RE: My new clowns in quarantine woke up sick, please help

Puffer Queen — Mon, 05 May 2008 07:30:54 GMT

angelfish addict (5/5/2008)

To answer your questions, the clowns were at the LFS for only a day,

they came from a tank full of clowns and there r still other clowns there,I went back to the LFS 5 days later to check if any others r sick and only 2 seem to have brookynella.

If there are any with brooklynella then all should be considered infected. Some may become "sicker" than others depending on infestation and immune system.

There's no heavy breathing or slime/mucus, skin looks fine (perfect actually), very alert and active, eating.

I'm kind of thinking now it may not be brookynella coz if it was wouldn't the clown be dead by now? It's been 1 week since I got him.

Not necessarily.

Water perameters now Ph 8.2 , Nitrite 0.3 , Ammonia 0.5 ,Nitrate 20 , SG 0.022, Temp 80 degrees, Copper 0.10 (during treatment which I now stopped and am in the process of removing). Exact waterflow not sure, but it's an internal sponge filter and i have a small airstone in there close to the surface of the water to keep it agitated for gas exchange. 5 Gal tank, no substrate, only 1 small freshwater decoration which I removed yesterday just incase if the reason y he's not getting better is coz he keeps bumping/rubbing it on the decoration.

Problem with stopping a treatment early is you could partially (ineffectively) treat an external parasite problem.

Airstones should be place towards the bottom to circulate the water. Low water flow/movement in the bottom leads to low oxygen levels and elevated carbon dioxide.

Rubbing against objects is a way a fish tries to rid itself of an external parasite.

RE: My new clowns in quarantine woke up sick, please help

Puffer Queen — Mon, 05 May 2008 07:25:20 GMT

angelfish addict (5/5/2008)

I started using cuprazin which is a mixture of copper and formalin, but it wasn't helping much, so i changed 25% and used copper to remove. Seems the copper has killed the nitifying bacteria coz i now have nitrites 0.3 and ammonia 0.5 will do another 30% water change today and keep testing the water.

Formalin will affect the biological filtration. I recommend not adding formalin to treatment tanks and with formalin, I only treat with the bath method.

I did a formalin bath yesterday the little clown didn't like it much and kept trying to jump out of the bath, so I only left him there for 2 minutes, I will try again today maybe in a darker container or something.

What type of aeration was in the container?

I got the clown to eat, but he will only eat brine shrimp and I got him eating garlic as well.

Is this live or frozen?

Activity is fine, no heavy breathing, no mucus/slime but on the redened areas there is alittle mucus not much though.

Watch closely for secondary bacterial infections

RE: My new clowns in quarantine woke up sick, please help

angelfish addict — Mon, 05 May 2008 01:54:24 GMT

To answer your questions, the clowns were at the LFS for only a day,

they came from a tank full of clowns and there r still other clowns there,I went back to the LFS 5 days later to check if any others r sick and only 2 seem to have brookynella.

There's no heavy breathing or slime/mucus, skin looks fine (perfect actually), very alert and active, eating.

I'm kind of thinking now it may not be brookynella coz if it was wouldn't the clown be dead by now? It's been 1 week since I got him.

Hope this helps.

RE: My new clowns in quarantine woke up sick, please help

angelfish addict — Mon, 05 May 2008 01:40:33 GMT

The next day it was back to how it was before he bumped it.

thank you

RE: My new clowns in quarantine woke up sick, please help

angelfish addict — Mon, 05 May 2008 01:24:53 GMT

I got the clown to eat, but he will only eat brine shrimp and I got him eating garlic as well.

Activity is fine, no heavy breathing, no mucus/slime but on the redened areas there is alittle mucus not much though.

RE: My new clowns in quarantine woke up sick, please help

Puffer Queen — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:32:16 GMT

Welcome to the MarineDepot forums.

angelfish addict (4/28/2008)

I got a pair or percular clowns yesterday who seemed perfectly healthy and acclimitized them for an hour, then put them into my quarantine tank (lights out 2 reduce stress), 4 hours later I fed them. Only the larger 1 ate, inspected them once more before i went to bed they looked fine still, no sign of disease, etc.

Good husbandry! If you hadn't quarantined these clowns, the display tank would have been exposed/infected.

Got up in the morning found they both have about 5 spots on their body, also, the larger clown has a white outline of a mis shaped circle on 1 side of its head, and the smaller clown has a redish-brownish line/mark below it's bottom lip.

How are the clowns breathing - fast, hard? Is there increased mucous production?

The larger clown is still eating, but the smaller clown is not interested in food. I noticed a white stool floating in the water (not a good sign-i know)

water parameters r fine, the quarantine tank is fully cycled, it's bare bottom, 5 gal.

What are the specific water parameters? What type/how much water flow is in this tank?

Unfortunately i can't post pictures. The clowns r from the wild, not captive bred.

How long were these clowns at the LFS? Are there any other clowns at the LFS?

Please help ASAP, I don't want these clowns to die.

For clown fish, especially wild caught one, I recommend prophylactically treating for brooklynella. I would perform daily one hour formalin baths for at least 3 - 5 days. With yours - I would definitely perform daily for five days. Make sure the formalin bath is well aerated as formalin will literally strip the oxygen from the water which will suffocate the fish.

After the formalin treatments are complete, I would definitely deworm these clowns.

Again, welcome. Please keep us updated.

Best of luck.

My new clowns in quarantine woke up sick, please help

angelfish addict — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:36:01 GMT

The larger clown is still eating, but the smaller clown is not interested in food. I noticed a white stool floating in the water (not a good sign-i know)

water parameters r fine, the quarantine tank is fully cycled, it's bare bottom, 5 gal.

Unfortunately i can't post pictures. The clowns r from the wild, not captive bred.

Please help ASAP, I don't want these clowns to die.