Gil damage on clarkii

[estanoche]

Hi Lee -

I'm a little concerned about my clarkii clownfish - she appears to have gil damage to her right hand side gil - and is breathing more labored and is less active than the other fish in my system

Some details:
I've had this fish for 4+ years - was in a 40 gallon with her mate for most of those years - was just moved to my 80 gallon display which houses 1 male flame wrasse, and a cleaner shimp - along with corals about 3 weeks ago. The 80 gallon display was started around 5/10/10.

When I fished her out of her old tank, she got caught in the net by one of her gils - She tried really hard to swim through the net so I affiliated her getting caught with her excitement.. Once she calmed down she was able to swim free

I never really inspected her for damage - just never came to mind - but now looking at her gil I think this may have been why she was caught in the net

Today I noticed shes a little blotchy - faded - lackluster - which caused me to look a little closer and I noticed this damage plus missing scales, etc.

No violence between tankmates - its a really peaceful tank - no one chases anyone

My Alk/CA/Mag is out of balance - I'm still working on getting my CA reactor stable and learning what this new tank's daily allowances are - and things are way out there, but here's my tests as of today

Salinity - 1.025
Temp - 76-79 thoughout the day
PH - 8.3 (AM) and 8.5 (PM)
ALK - 7.7
CA - 350
Mag - 1250

And pictures -

and a picture of the male for reference -

I've moved her to a hospital tank where she will be easier to catch and treat and monitor.

I feed a homemade mix of omnivore food (nori, chopped seafood, etc), with selcon, and cyclopeeze mixed in.


What is your advice?

 

[estanoche]

A little more update - new day, new data, right??

Tested amonia, ph, sg, and nitrates in the QT
SG - 1.025
PH - 8.0
Amonia - ~.1
Nitrates - 10ppm

Did a 10% WC on the QT tank volume for good measure.

Today the clownfish is less blotchy, but more faded (less black than normal), her eyes are clouded, she is less interested in food, and you can see red inside her "nostrils". Breathing is a little better today, but life in the QT is much less stressful and chaotic than in the display tank with all the flow.

I have a microscope handy - so we took some live swabs from her skin to see if we could find any evidence of dinoflagellates/Marine Velvet as thats my best guess aside from a bacterial infection at this point - but we could find nothing but skin cells on our swabs...

Started treating with Maracyn2 under the hopes its bacterial -

Pictures from today (before the maracyn2 turned the water yellow) - she looks worse than the pictures demonstrate, they aren't capturing the cloudyness at all

 

[jag3534]

I'm sorry!! I hope someone has an idea of what's happening/ what to do!!

 

[estanoche]

I'm sorry!! I hope someone has an idea of what's happening/ what to do!!

Yeah - or my Maracyn treatment works

At least I'm getting to practice self-diagnosis of my fish diseases!! I don't acquire new fish often, so I rarely deal with them.

 

[jag3534]

And use of medicines and whatnot. I hope the treatment works and the next update is good news!

 

[leebca]

If trying to diagnose parasites by microscopy, the proper samples to take are skin scrapings, a piece of the tail (fin clip), and a piece of the gill (gill clip). This is performed while the fish is anesthetized.

The best test for Marine Velvet is to give the fish a FW bath for at least 10 minutes according to the recommended procedure here: Fresh Water Fish Dip. You then examine the bath water after allowing it to settle to see if any tiny specs are noted. Specs can be assumed to be some of the MV that fell off.

I see from the photos no indication of Marine Ich, nor Marine Velvet. I would suspect brooklynellosis and treat for that before any other treatment.

 

[estanoche]

If trying to diagnose parasites by microscopy, the proper samples to take are skin scrapings, a piece of the tail (fin clip), and a piece of the gill (gill clip). This is performed while the fish is anesthetized.

The best test for Marine Velvet is to give the fish a FW bath for at least 10 minutes according to the recommended procedure here: Fresh Water Fish Dip. You then examine the bath water after allowing it to settle to see if any tiny specs are noted. Specs can be assumed to be some of the MV that fell off.

I see from the photos no indication of Marine Ich, nor Marine Velvet. I would suspect brooklynellosis and treat for that before any other treatment.

Thanks Lee!!

I did loose the female last night - she was just totally emaciated, uninterested in food and lethargic - I did think of Brook last night and performed a last ditch formalin treatment, but to no avail.

I am continuing to try to catch the male without damaging him so I can proceed with treatment for brook on him - I just didn't consider it to begin with since I haven't added any new clownfish to the system since they got these two years and years ago - really wierd.

Would a tang have carried it in if it was housed with clownfish at the LFS? There was a brief period where these clownfish were exposed to a tang in QT while I was changing tanks. The tang passed, and after 3 weeks in solitary I moved the clownfish to my display not thinking they had anything.

Also - is this pretty much your recommended treatment procedure for brook?
http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38818&highlight=brook

 

[leebca]

Sorry to hear of the loss. That link is to the treatment I recommend.

'Brook' was once considered to be a 'stress disease' or a kind of opportunistic pathogen. It falls into a category between 'always there waiting to display' to 'any new fish can bring it.' Once a fish is cured of it and then kept in quarantine after the treatment for a full 4+ weeks, fed properly and under little stress, they usually not get it again UNLESS the original tank water quality, environment, or tank mates are wrong for it.

 

[estanoche]

Sorry to hear of the loss. That link is to the treatment I recommend.

'Brook' was once considered to be a 'stress disease' or a kind of opportunistic pathogen. It falls into a category between 'always there waiting to display' to 'any new fish can bring it.' Once a fish is cured of it and then kept in quarantine after the treatment for a full 4+ weeks, fed properly and under little stress, they usually not get it again UNLESS the original tank water quality, environment, or tank mates are wrong for it.

Interesting - I guess it never stuck in my head that brook could just come up anytime - I was only looking for it when I added new clowns!!

Quick update though - the male is 100% fine, no signs of brook, or any other ailment. So my clown worries so far are only related to my female, thankfully!

Of course, without his girlfriend the male is quick to start being aggressive and staking his/her new territory in the tank.