Sick Ocellaris Clown

TropicalNorth

TropicalNorth

Bligh..The Demander Of Attention..
Jun 9, 2006
860
0
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North Queensland, Australia
On Monday I bought an Ocellaris Clown and a Yellow Coral Goby, I acclimatised them (float, add a little water, wait, add a little more water etc etc). They both ate the next day and the goby settled in quickly. The clown however spent all of its time swimming against the current towards the top (not gasping or anything) at the one end of the tank. To me it seemed like it was wearing itself out, it continued to eat and appeared healthy (no marks). My Falco Hawkfish seemed a little wary and displayed some aggression towards the clown but I never saw it touch it or anything.

Last night I noticed the clown didn't go down to the bottom to 'sleep' but stayed at the top and this morning (Friday) the Falco Hawkfish attacked it. The clown is now in a floating fry saver, with an aerator for extra aeration. It is swimming in circles with a jerking motion, it doesn't seem to be able to control its buoyancy, isn't eating and is breathing fairly hard.

To me it looks like a Swim Bladder problem maybe brought on by stress and maybe because there is a fairly strong flow in the tank??? Any ideas??? What should I do???

Stats:
Tank : 20g (set up for 3 months)
Params : 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrite, 5ppm nitrate, sg 1.026, 9DKH, temp 26c/80f, pH 8.1.
Inhabitants : Falco Hawkfish, Bicolor Blenny, Yellow Coral Goby (all are acting perfectly normally, eating, swimming around etc)

Short video (sorry for quality I'm still on dial-up).
http://s137.photobucket.com/albums/q201/renay86/?action=view&current=132_5469.flv

Thanks.
 
I only asked in case your SG was too high. but if the refractometer has been calibrated then it won't be that. It might still be worth lowering your Sg a little, say to about 1.024 just to try. I'm only suggesting this becasue my friends OC had similar problems but her SG was way off.
 
It's possible the sg could be off but unlikely, I have quite a few Brittle Starfish (and other inverts) and I think they'd show signs of a high sg before the fish.
 
yea inverts can do ok in high salinity if the change was gradual. but sounds like it was just a bad clownfish. i have seen this many times form petco. they act that way and then shortly after die. sometimes its swim badder sometimes malnutrition, other times an infection or all the above. im sorry for you loss.
 
That's what I thought too, I watched it for ages in the shop to make sure it was healthy but maybe it was just a bit weak and the stress of the move was too much for it. It's very frustrating when I do everything right but sometimes a fish still gets sick.

It's still alive but is still swimming funny and its fins are starting to fray and seemingly rot away, definately not looking good for the little fella :(. The other fish are all still fine, which is reassuring.

Would it help if I treated it (out of the tank) with a general medication, Melafix maybe?
 
always worth a shot. I would bring down the SG a bit and slowly acclimitize him using the drip method, try feeding his some garlic soaked food and maybe keeping the lights off in his QT tank. Always worth trying any and all things to save ones fish
 
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