My sad clown wants a new friend

[t0adman]

I had to move my 55 gal tank last weekend and the resulting stress, combined with an unexpected drop in temp (new location colder than last) was too much for the smaller (male) clown of my mated pair. He contracted some horrible ick and passed away before I could begin lowering the salinity in the tank. The remaining clown is very lonely and I'm wondering if I can replace the missing clown and have them be friends. I've heard that they can reject a mate and end up attacking it. Any suggestions or insight you can provide is much appreciated. TIA.

[CaptainK]

Hi t0adman,
I believe your best chance would be to get the same kind of clown that is smaller than the one you have now.
Maybe even try to get the smallest one at the local fish store. That way you have a chance of it already being a male.
HTH,
CaptK

[Ninong]

Sorry to hear about your clownfish. One point I would like to make is that if this is a reef tank, you should not attempt lowering the salinity in the tank to combat ich. For hyposalinity to be effective against Cryptocaryon irritans, it must be lowered to 1.009, which would kill all invertebrates in the tank.

What species is your clownfish? You should have no problems introducing a juvenile of the same species as a replacement for the dearly departed one. Of course, if you have a Maroon clown, the pairing process can be more hazardous.

Ninong

[t0adman]

The species is/was Ocilleris (sp?). I was told by the LFS that using something like Rid-Ich was harmful to inverts and that lowering the salinity to 1.001 over the course of a week, then slowly back up to 1.0023 over a week was an effective method. Yikes. I'm all confused now.

[Ninong]

You slipped an extra zero in your numbers. What they meant to tell you was 1.010 and if they wanted you to keep it at 1.023 normally, then they think you have a fish-only tank. You cannot do that in a reef tank. In fact, you cannot do it in a fish-only tank either if you have real live rock, snails, hermits, shrimp, or other inverts.

But getting back to your Amphiprion ocellaris clownfish, just go out and buy another one that is an inch or more smaller than the present one and things should work out fine. You may want to hold off on adding anything new to your tank for the next three or four weeks if you just had an outbreak of ich.

Ninong

[t0adman]

Where shold my salinity (spec gravity) be?

[Ninong]

For a reef tank, most people maintain a specific gravity of 1.025 to 1.026. Depending on your temperature, this should equal a salinity of somewhere around 35ppt. A specific gravity of 1.023 is OK for a fish-only tank, but you should try to stay above 1.024 in a reef tank.

Ninong

[t0adman]

I run the tank right around 79.8 degrees. If lowering the salinity over the course of a week is not suggested for combating ich in a reef tank, what do you recommend?

[Ninong]

There are several approaches to treating ich, but most of them require that you have a separate hospital/quarantine tank. One of the few things you can do to combat ich IN the reef tank is to soak the food in garlic extract and/or add very finely minced garlic to the food. Many times this is sufficient to take care of the problem.

You can treat with hyposalinity in a quarantine tank or you can treat with copper sulfate (CuSO4) in either citrated or chelated form in a quarantine tank.

Ninong

[t0adman]

Garlic? Consider it done! Little for the fish, little for me.

[Ninong]

Most people like to use Kyolic garlic extract from General Nutrition Centers. They soak the food in that. Horge says that if you can get the fish to eat finely minced garlic, it is even better.

Ninong

[t0adman]

What's the best way to encourage them to eat finely minced garlic? Mix it well with their food?

[Ninong]

Yes, but some will eat it and some won't.

Ninong

[t0adman]

Festina Voro !