Already lost Clown Goby... now for my Clownfish - HELP!

Reef Lover Another fish can't catch ick from another fish. What other symptoms does your clown have?


Umm what???

Agreed with the rest it looks and sounds like ick Yuck! One thing to point out here is ick can be brought out with stress. How old is the tank? How long have the inhabitants been living together? With out going through a whole ick lecture odds are one of two things happened, new fish brought ick to tank or ick was in tank and tank conditions ( too small of tank/too new of tank or new addition) brought the ck on. Hospital tank is best. If not an option, lower salinity in the tank (Slowly) and lower temp (Slowly) for three days see if it helps. You are going to have to let the Ick in the main tank die off before adding new tank members. I dont remember the time it takes but it is a while.

 

Thanks for your help. I don't have alot invested in coral at this point and I decided to try and treat the problem with PimaFix. I also decided to try and treat in the main tank since PimaFix is suppose to be reef safe. I realize that it is still a risk, but since I don't have much, I thought I'd give it a try and see how it did. That way, if I needed to do this in the future, I would have a better idea if it is actually reef safe. I started treatment yesterday, the clownfish looked better this morning, and even better in the afternoon. Only 1 item in the tank appears to be having a problem. It's a small frag of some kind of leather. I'm not exactly sure what kind, but my guess was toadstool leather. The PimaFix may not be agreeing with it, but I suppose time will tell. I've continued treatment tonight. I really was concerned about transferring the fish to a qt (which I do have setup), because of how difficult and obviously stressful it was on him when I did the freshwater dip. I thought it would be best to attempt treating him in the main tank.

I'll update the post again tomorrow.

Thanks again!

 

Why are you treating a parasite with a fungal medicine? One other thing I am not a huge fan of freshwater dips or baths sorta like sucking a tail pipe to cure a headache. It does stress the fish and if its not a parasite it probably wont help and if it is a parasite it may take as long to remove the parasite as it does to kill the fish. Hope all goes well but do disagree with the measures you are taking.

 

Not to be the over livestocking nazi here, but my thought exactly. The important thing to note is that when fish are stressed, their immune system is compromised and this makes them susceptible to diseases, especially ich. The rule of thumb is 5 gallons of water for each inch of adult fish size. Obviously with less than five net gallons of water due to displacement from the live rock, even one clown fish, 4 - 6" as adults, is too much bioload for your mini.

Good luck with beating the ich. Removing the fish and letting the tank be fallow for more than six weeks will kill the ich in your tank as that is the lifecycle of the pathogen without a host. A small goby, damsel or other small fish would be the way to go in the future. The Catalina Goby would be a particularly good choice.



Lythrypnus dalli - A very beautiful and usually hardy fish, they remain quite small. The Catalina Goby or Blue-banded Goby can be good for a reef aquarium to add color and movement.
NOTE: The Catalina Goby or Blue-banded Goby must be kept at a lower temperature than most marine fish!
A cold water marine aquarium is ideal as these are not a "tropical" fish. They are "coldwater" fish, which means they will thrive best in temperatures in the 50°s and 60°s F (with the highest temperatures being 74° F).