Clown fish with white string hanging!!

[SaltyJZ]

I have had my clown for a week and my tank for a little over a month. Today the larger clown has a white string and the smaller clown has not eaten in two days. When i put them in the tank they were playful and all over the place. Any suggestions. Thnaks. I am new to slatwater, and all ears. JZ

[Reefing Madness]

I replied in the other thread to ya, my bad.
What are your Nitrites? How long have you had these new fish? Do you run a skimmer or mechanical filtration? Have you cleaned the filter? Do you have Live Rock? What are you feeding the Clowns?
Crap, I answered in the wrong area. Sorry leebca, not tryin to nose in. you really want him to answer.

[SaltyJZ]

Thanks for the quick reply. i have a 70 gallon tank. My nitrates are .5. ph is8.3. Did a water check at the fish store and it was perfect, so they said. I got the fish saturday and they have been eating brine shrimp. i have about 50 pounnds of live rock and octopus protein skimmer. I have had a bunch of brown algae and added some emerald crabs. The other ocupants are three damsels that helped cycle my tank. they dont pick on the other fish though!!

[chrisfont23]

Salty...post everything pertinent about your tank and we can help. Not nearly enough info to even begin guessing

[SaltyJZ]

Chris i appreciate the post. 70 gallon octpus protein skimmer, nitrates are .5 ph 8.3 Ammonia was 0 on saturday. Need to buy test kit. Just a month old to this. 50 pounds live rock. # damsels, 2 clowns 2 emerald crabs, 1 fire shrimp, have done water changes and cleaned glass weekly. Hope that helps. I really am to new to this to know what else to put. Sorry. JZ

[chrisfont23]

How bout temp...salinity...dhk? Calcium? Phosphates? What kind of water do you use? do you dose anything? What about feeding? Someone will probably chime in w a good list of params but there is a little more we would need to begin.

[Original Fin]

DO you know what nitRITES are at? It's possible the tank is not finished cycling yet, and if so it would probably still be in the nitrite producing stage, which is could slowly be poisoning your fish and inverts.Also, I'm going to venture a guess that youve probably overloaded the biological filter, so you may have new ammonia issues too. 4 fish in a month old 70 is too fast, and this is what can happen, especially if you don't have enough bio capacity in rock, and at 50 lbs, you are on the light side. You want at least 70 lbs, but 100 would be better.The other possibility is that one or more of your fish were disease carriers, and have spread it to the rest of them, Marine ich being one of the usual suspects. White stringy poop indicates the presence of internal parasites. All fish with this need to be dewormed. If you find yourself needing to start over, 100% quarantine everytime is the only way to go.

[SaltyJZ]

Original fin i understand. Will do a complete water test tom and get back with readings. Can u explain the qurentine process. is it before they go in the tank ? dont mean to ask dumb questions, kust wnt to learn. Will get soem more live rock as well. JZ

[Reefing Madness]

DO you know what nitRITES are at? It's possible the tank is not finished cycling yet, and if so it would probably still be in the nitrite producing stage, which is could slowly be poisoning your fish and inverts.Also, I'm going to venture a guess that youve probably overloaded the biological filter, so you may have new ammonia issues too. 4 fish in a month old 70 is too fast, and this is what can happen, especially if you don't have enough bio capacity in rock, and at 50 lbs, you are on the light side. You want at least 70 lbs, but 100 would be better.The other possibility is that one or more of your fish were disease carriers, and have spread it to the rest of them, Marine ich being one of the usual suspects. White stringy poop indicates the presence of internal parasites. All fish with this need to be dewormed. If you find yourself needing to start over, 100% quarantine everytime is the only way to go.

I concur. Also, I wouldn't feed Brine, try Mysis Shrimp instead, and some multi flake food. But, at this stage don't feed the tank a whole lot, to keep the water issues down. Also, sounds like your cycle isn't over yet, you still have diatoms sounds like.

[Original Fin]

A Fish Quarantine Process Don't sweat it. Gotta start somewhere, and you found a good place. There are lots of knowledgable people here that can help you. Check out all of the "sticky" threads here. Most of them are like a categorized how to for beginners. Some get a little more advanced, but it's all worthwhile reading. Beware of people responding to your posts as if you intended to purposely kill all of your fish...there are a lot of them. Taking that personally is a waste of time, and counterproductive, so just ignore em, and try not to bait them.This is another good thread I recommend starting with written by Leebca, our resident expert and forum moderator. Hit us with all your questions after reading!Setting Up a FOWLR Aquarium GL and welcome to Reefland!

[SaltyJZ]

Well guys the show is over. My clownfish finally died. Not encouraging. Just to recap. Purchased a 70 gallon tank. Octopus protein skimmer. Have about 60 pounds of live rock. Did two water tests the last two weeks and the aquarium store said it was perfect. Did my own and it looked great. So. Two weeks ago purchased two clowns from store and they both passed away. Will take blame for that because I was in 3rd week of cycle. However the store said it would be okay yeah right. When those died I picked up a fire shrimp a domino damsel and two blue devil damsels to help cycle the tank. I am beginner so I listen to the sales people. Not working out. Last Saturday picked up two more clowns and put it with previous listed fish. First two days great. From Tuesday till Friday smaller clown did not eat and died. I then noticed white string on bigger clown. String went away and this morning big clown was dead. What the hell is going on. Don't know what to add. Need suggestions. Have lost for clowns and all damsels are alive and well. Fire shrimp good. And oh I added a star bleeny. . .....

[Reefing Madness]

Don't get down on this, salt water is a toughy and some of the fish delicate. You may have gotten them with the disease, and they were just unable to fight it off.