[vaporize]

Not sure if this is bacterial.

I have two blue stripe clownfish QT for 2 months before I transferred them from their QT to a 20G semi-reef tank. They have been actively eating and looks healthy for 2 weeks, until last Sunday I noticed that there are a little of dusty white spot on their body and they are scracthing their gills, so I immediately suspect that it is velvet. After I mixed some beta-glucan with mysis shrimp and eat them to eat, I removed them to a 5G QT (setup see pic) for cupramine treatment.

On the first 2-3 days both of the fish were very alert and eating somewhat, however when it gets to around the 4-5th day, the male fish start to hide behind pots and are not responsive to food. I thought it might be a water quality issue and changed 75% of the water and added back the cupramine treatment, there are no visible of dusty white spot nor scratching. The male is very unresponsive and laying on the side hiding (see pics).

On the 5th day, I start to see the fins and tail getting damages and fall into threads, so I suspect that there might be bacterial infection. I put in a maraycn tablet to hope to combat the bacterial infection.

This is now the 6th day, the fin & tail damages seems to worsen and color on the body is a bit more pale. (see pics) I have no idea how to help the fish, I have put some beta-glucan tablet in the water hoping it will get absorbed but Lee said it wouldn't. The female is still very alert and staying with the male on the side, she is eating frozen mysis though.

One thing to note, unlike previous velvet infection, there was not a time that these fish exhibit very rapid breathing (except the time I try to catch them).

LEE, any suggestion or recommendations would be very much appreciated.

[vaporize]

okay I take it back about the breathing, today I can see the very rapid breathing rate with the male fish and the female stopped eating also.

I believe this is more a case of velvet with secondary bacterial infection.

[leebca]

Something smells fishy.

You say you think they got MV. From where? After a two-month quarantine how did they get infected? The time and effort to quarantine for that long and then they get a disease doesn’t make sense, unless they’ve been handled carelessly.

They are not tiny fish. Why are they going into such a small aquarium? That isn’t the right size for them. Second to that, why are they both being put into the small aquarium at the same time? That’s a major stress on such a small bioload capacity system. I would not be surprised if the water quality went south very quickly.

Without a diagnosis, they have been treated sort of on a shotgun approach. Not good for the fish or you, I should think.

What have they been eating during the two months?

I want to help, but there’s just too many things ‘not right’ about this, I’m afraid I just don’t have all the facts. The fish could literally just be dissolving away from the treatments and handling.

[vaporize]

Originally Posted by leebca

Something smells fishy.
You say you think they got MV. From where? After a two-month quarantine how did they get infected? The time and effort to quarantine for that long and then they get a disease doesn’t make sense, unless they’ve been handled carelessly.

I quarantined them for 2 months in a 20G and I have not noticed anything unusal. Then they are transferred to an established 20G reef that previously have other clownfish (but were kept empty for 2 weeks since the heater broke and I transfered the old ones out), there were never any MV symptoms with the old ones. So after the pair has been in the reef for two weeks the MV symptom appeared one night (dusty white spot and scrathing gill on rocks), and that's when I removed them to the 5G QT.

I suspect that MV might have been introduced with new corals that I put into the 20G reef tank or most likely with 2pairs of seahorses that I purchased from a LFS (I found out last weekend that their tank is heavily infested with MV, prior they do not have any fish in with the sea horses). Reading numerous literature I was under the impression that seahorses are not MV carriers, so I did not pay specific attention to them when I introduce them, but now I suspect there might be little traces of water that might have MV and got introduced that way.

Originally Posted by leebca

They are not tiny fish. Why are they going into such a small aquarium? That isn’t the right size for them. Second to that, why are they both being put into the small aquarium at the same time? That’s a major stress on such a small bioload capacity system. I would not be surprised if the water quality went south very quickly.

You are right, at the moment, all I could think of was to put them into QT and the only one available was a 5G. I have removed them into a 33G tank tonight with just the pot for hiding, heater & sponge filter. The water is 50% old water from another reef system and 25% new FW, 25% new SW, salinity is at 1.018. The two fish were put into the QT at the same time because my initial diagnosis was MV, therefore all fish have to be treated, so both of them are removed as they are a bonded pair. There are no other fish in that infected 20G reef tank.

Originally Posted by leebca

Without a diagnosis, they have been treated sort of on a shotgun approach. Not good for the fish or you, I should think.

In the beginning, i was under the impression that it is MV, but after the dusty white spot is absent, the other ragged fin and pale body start to appear. tonight, the female is breath a little bit fast but still very alert, but not eating. The male is laying almost on the side, breathing rapidly, pale color, and ragged fins, not moving much most of the time. Now they are in new water in a 30G QT system with no medication, 5mL of Prime was added for the slime coat.

Originally Posted by leebca

What have they been eating during the two months?

Pellets, Flakes, frozen mysis. Tried algae but they do not touch it and end up melting in the water and pollute it, so I feed them some "veggie pellet" ocean nutrition from time to time.

Originally Posted by leebca

I want to help, but there’s just too many things ‘not right’ about this, I’m afraid I just don’t have all the facts. The fish could literally just be dissolving away from the treatments and handling.

Thanks for reminding me, I think I miss to mention about the seahorses, that might be the source of contamination from MV. Either that or new coral colonies that I put in, but I think that might be a smaller chance as I use Lugol (strong idodine) coral dip to disinfect all coral colonies being putting them into the tank; that's not so much for disinfecting fish parasite but the coral parasites.

Thanks again for the help Lee.

[leebca]

That explains things better. There was much effort and time spent in the quarantine and it sort of got thrown away.

With the copper and antibiotic treatment behind them, they are now likely suffering from poor water quality. It could be poisons, organics, leftover junk from pellets (e.g., wheat products the fish doesn't digest), or the usual suspects of ammonia and nitrites.

This on top of providing low nutrition would explain their deterioration. Flake and pellets are easy for humans to feed their fishes, but it is the bottom of preferred choices for nutrition and digestible foods.

[vaporize]

Are there anything I can do for them in the meanwhile? I added the Boyd Vitamin in the water, there is no medication in the water right now. I added vitamin B12 pill to stimulate appetite.

They are out of the dirty water and in relatively clean water now. The male's breathing rate is not as rapid but not sure if it means it's finally ran out of energy and about to die or it's improving a little bit.

YouTube - Blue Stripe down

[leebca]

Remove as much stress from the fish as you can and hope they will fight back. Be prepared to serve the best foods when and if they begin to eat.

[vaporize]

Hi LEE,

I have to really praise you, your medical and diagnosis skills are really top notch in the industry. You recommendations are always so right to the point and frank. THANK YOU SO MUCH ALWAYS~

Tonight I went back home, almost expecting to pick out the male clownfish's dead body out of the tank (since its condition only worsen day by day, from breathing rapidly to laying on the sides last night), I was surprise to see it actually swimming normally and it is even biting on the wall (like showing somewhat of a clownfish nesting behaviour, the male does it a bit more than the female, and that is normal). There is a little bit of head jerking actions coming from the male, I am not sure if there still is gill parasite or it is just recovering from the previous damage.

The only thing I noticed was that yesterday the heater in the tank was not able to push the temperature up and it stayed at 72F, so I put in a 100W ebo heater and today the temperature stablize at 80F.

I am not really sure if the boyd vitachem (vitamin c) serve any purpose in their recover either. I feed them garlic pellet & some PE Mysis, they ate sparingly but at least they ate them; in the beginning they did spit out the food but later they slowly consumed some. I am not sure at this point what can be classified as "best food", I would think meaty stuff that provides high marine fat content? Maybe vitachem enriched mysis shrimp? I know about the beta-glucan tablets, however I can see from their reaction previously that it does diminish the taste and they do not really eat that.

Thanks for any suggestions and all the help.

(Sorry about the loud background noise)
YouTube - Blue Stripe Day 9

[leebca]

You are welcome. Thanks for expressing your satisfaction.

The 'best foods' are the foods the fish needs in order to thrive. In the case of the omnivore Anemonefish, the best foods are:

1. Foods from the sea (only); including seaweed and animals
2. Converse to the above -- no land products (e.g. wheat in pellets)
3. Frozen foods
4. Whole foods (not just shrimp tails, but the whole shrimp, or in the case of the small fish, whole sea plankton and krill).
5. Food supplemented with vitamins and fats
6. Addition of immune boosters as given in this post (since the fish are recovering from a problem): Fish Immune Boosters