Sick fish, won't eat...

[Riptide]

Things have taken a turn for the worst and my maroon clown that had been doing OK in my quarantine tank appears to be totally uninterested in his food. I have been treating with copper for ich (see earlier thread on problems w/that) and ever since removing all the gravel and furnishings he has lost all interest in food. I don' t know if that correlation means anything or not.

I have so far been feeding him flake. Should I try brine? He showed no interest in that when I first bought him and got him home (before he got sick) and it was only flake that he would eat then.

I'm not sure what to do... He still swims around fairly normally and isn't sitting on the bottom all the time or anything like that. Just doesn't seem to want to eat.

I hope it doesn't have anything to do with the copper treatment. It might be making him sick but according to my test kit the concentration is already to low to be of use in treating the ich. But I'm not sure I can trust the kits I've had so far so for all I know he's being overdosed.

This is very frustrating. :mad:

[MonoSebaelover]

I would try some live brine shrimp. No fish can resist them. So try that and see what ya get. Anyway, hope this helps.

[Riptide]

I guess we'll give that a try if the frozen stuff doesn't work tonight. I've tried to hatch them before and none of them ever hatched - not sure what I was doing wrong. I'd go buy some from our LFS if they sold them but they don't. :(

[OrionGirl]

A couple tips on raising brine. 1) use salted water. 2) keep the water warm--about 78 works best for me. 3) In 2 days, take a bright light and a magnifying glass to search for them. Newly hatched brine are TINY. Smaller than I expected. It takes feeding and time for them to get to a feedable size.

[Riptide]

What am I supposed to feed the young brine shrimp/sea monkeys? :)

[OrionGirl]

I fed yeast, but any tiny filter feeder food for corals would work as well. The yeast was just regular brewer's yeast. I'd mix 5-10 grains of sugar in some warm water with 3-4 grains of yeast, let it get cloudy, then pour it into the container with the shrimp til the water was slightly cloudy. Feed once every other day. In about a week, the brine are about 1/8 an inch long.

[Sharyl C]

I have a couple of suggestions reguarding the clownfish and Q-tank setup.

First I would check ammonia. Copper can have an effect on the bacteria that break down fish waste, and after removing all the gravel you may be dealing with a little bit of ammonia/nitrite spike.

Second I bet your clownfish is a little stressed out by the fact that he has no where/ nothing to hide in. I always try to think back to the behaviors and animal exhibits in the wild and use that as a basis for building their habitat. obviously you shouldn't and don't need to put an anemone in with him - but something to hide in or behind may make him feel a little better. I like clean PVC elbows or T's or just a weighted plastic plant.

Also - try some small/pacifica krill or mysis shrimp.

[Riptide]

Thanks for the suggestions. He did eat a little bit of flake last night so I'm not sure what to think of this... I will probably keep trying to give him flake and keep a real close eye on him. If he keeps being finicky about the food then I'll definitely try the frozen brine or shrimp, followed by live brine if that fails.

I also am a little concerned about him not having any shelter. I think he is a little bored in there and it's adding to the stress. The problem is that I can't trust the stupid test kits that I've got both @ our LFS and from Dr. Foster's so at this point I'm treating blind and it's going to stay that way. I am very, very hesitant to add much more copper in there for fear of poisoning him. I'm hesitant to add any decor because of any possible potential to leach the copper out of the water. I realize I might be under-dosing, but that's a risk we're going to have to take since I can't find a reliable kit. If the ich kills him, then I've done all I can short of spending an absolutely ridiculous amount of money to fly another kit in (I've already spent $30 on two of them, plus two $8 bottles of medication).

Ammonia shouldn't be building up because I've been doing 50% changes every two days. His bio-filter is non-existent... The only bio-wheel on there is barely a week old. Another reason I have been keeping up with the frequent water changes.

[Sharyl C]

Clowns are fairly hardy- have your considered using a hyposalinity treatment method. Cryptocarion (Marine ich) can be treated by keeping the salinity below 16ppt for 3 weeks.

This may be a less risky option than copper if you don't feel your copper test can be trusted.

[Riptide]

16ppm being equal to 1.016 on the gravity gauge right?

I fed him this evening and he did seem to eat some so he isn't extremely weak yet. I thought about a freshwater dip but just haven't worked the guts up to try it yet. Spots are visible on his body. Not real white spots but kind of grayish in color actually. If the copper doesn't start working soon I'm going to think about switching to some other medication.

Should I raise the temperature? It's @ 78 right now.

[Sharyl C]

I'm not sure what the exact conversion is between ppt and specific gravity, but I looked at my refractometer which has both and 16ppt seems to match up with about 1.012.

FW water dips are super easy and most fish can handle them for at least 2-3 min (4-5 min is best). I have a friend that has done them on several occassions to leafy sea dragons and they do fine. The keys are to make sure you FW is the same temp and pH as your tank water. Once the fish is in watch him - most will let you know when they are ready to get out. As above its best to it from 2-5 mins but every little bit will help.

Also moving the animal to a clean/sterilized tank after the FW dip will also help decrease the parasite load and slow reinfestation.

Finally - are you absolutely sure you are dealing with marine ich (a.k.a. cryptocarion)? Can you describe what it looks like for me? If its not perhaps copper is not the proper medication.
Some "bugs" are resistant to copper.

[Riptide]

Wow, so I need to bring the salinity down quite a bit. Right now it's about 1.022. Starting with his water change tonight (50%) I'll drop the salinity down a bit.

As long as he shows appetite tonight when I try and feed him (before the water change) I'll make an effort to setup a small plastic container of freshwater with the right PH and temperature and then I'll put him in there for a bit of a dip. Hopefully it won't hurt him. He's a juvenile (only about 2") so it's a pretty delicate fish I think. I'll give it a shot though.

The fish has small grayish colored dots on him. He was exposed to a fish that had a similar problem (a much larger butterfly with white spots on him) about two weeks ago. He's been in the QT tank since then and got the spots about one week ago. The fish doesn't scratch much but he does occasionally "flick" his head while he swims.

I'm not sure what else this could be other than ich.

[Sharyl C]

Do the spots look like small grain of salt or are they more like patches. The time frame sounds about right for crypt, but other things can fall into that time frame as well.

here's a link to a picture of a yellow tang with crypt - this is what it typically looks like.

http://www.drpez.com/pz11.htm

and here is a damsel that is suffering from a Brooklynella infection - another protozoan parasite that clownfish commonly come down with. (the damsel pic is at the bottom of the webpage - i tried to attach just the image and couldn't figure it out- sorry)

http://www.aquarium.net/0497/0497_6.shtml

Another bit on the lower salinity and FW dip - I wouldn't do them both at the same time. You can start to lower the salinity, but once you get below 25 or so you'll need to allow some time for the fish to get used to it and the less stress during this period the better. IMO the FW dip should come first, then wait 2-3 days and start lowering the salinity if you still need to.

Also I want to stress the idea of putting the fish into a clean "tank" after the FW dip, even if it just a bucket with new SW& air while the Q-tank is bleached and cleaned. The nature of the crypt parasite is that it reproduces off the fish and then the next generations jumps back on the fish and starts feeding. If you can rid the Q tank of the "reproducers" in the tank by bleaching it and rid the fish of the "feeders" by dipping it - you'll get a head of it hopefully.

Hope this helps.

[Riptide]

The spots are not as white or as large as the ones on the tang. They look more like small air bubbles that are milky gray in color stuck to the fish. They are not air bubbles though as bubbles have a particular reflective/mirror quality these things don't have.

I am embarassed to admit that I have made a major mistake. Last time I changed water on the poor fellow I forgot to plug the heater in! :eek:

We noticed him kind of sluggish and hanging out near the bottom today. My wife checked the temperature and noticed it was near 70. :(

A couple more goofups like that and I don't deserve to keep these (marine) fish.

On the bright side, check out the image of my haplochromis red empress. I know, kinda OT but it is a nice fish. :)