Quick Help! Sick Clownfish

I don't know if I have the worse luck or what... my first pair of clowns were sick and passed on, cleaned out everything with vinegar, let dry in sun, waited 2 weeks, and got these fish. now these clowns are sick on the 4th week of QT.

I will admit I missed a few water changes in the QT and almost didn't change the water for 6 days in a 10 gallon QT. I don't know if that matters... I doubt it, but I did that water change on Sunday and now this.

pair of B&W ocelllaris clowns, both look like i think they have ich. please confirm that it is ich. then afterwards what should i do to treat?

I don't have copper, but I do have melafix, pimafix, prazipro, and paragard. All of which I don't think really treat ich, am I correct?

if I try to do TTM could that treat them? I have another tank with a crack at the bottom and not cleaned out, I don't really trust it entirely. Problem is I'm also leaving town this weekend...

If I do need copper, what product do I need specifically?

here's a pic

I would've waited a couple months if not more.

But moving forward, I've used cupramine before and that seemed to do the trick for me. You could try freshwater dipping and then attempting cupramine. Do you have a cycled tank that could be used as a QT?

Good luck bud.

oh forgot to mention. That looks like ick to me.

well this is my QT tank and not my DT.

i asked around the forums what I should do to the setup after I got rid of the first fish. I cleaned the tank with lots of vinegar, let it dry in the sun as advised, and then had it dry for 2 weeks. Everything in that QT setup was cleaned and dried the same way (powerhead, heater, PVC changed out, tank, etc). nothing shared with the DT.

I don't have a cycled tank other than my DT. I do have some live rock in a bucket running, but I think that stuff is pretty unclean water as I haven't changed it in like 2 months (I really should just let that LR die since I don't need it for my DT anymore).

i do have another tank with a crack at the bottom... i could try filling it with some salt water and then try to do the TTM... i don't know if that helps. Or if I should just take out all the water of this QT and then treat with cupramine.

should i change the water out entirely?

ok, i did a freshwater dip as more and more i think this is actually brook. their colors are kinda faded.

i transferred them into a 5 gallon bucket. I hope they make it in the morning... anyone know where I can get formalin in the san fernando valley?

well sadly i lost the little clown this morning. not sure what to do from here. i will still try to get the formalin for now i suppose and treat the other one.

the next question is, is it just dumb luck or is it the LFS? i got a pair of the same clowns from them and they had brook too. after returning them, the LFS offered to order me another pair. i cleaned out the last setup with vinegar and tap water for 1-2 days and then scrubbed stuff down. i put it to dry all in the sun and then paper towel dried it. left it sit for 2 weeks dry.

the only reason why i still have a question about it is, the first pair showed the brook in the first 7 days. these pair showed brook after 4 weeks. i know it takes up to 6 weeks to show illness after removing them from low copper environments, but how did the first pair show it in one week? is it the LFS? is it my setup process? kind of worried I transfer it to the next fish or to the DT.

don't know if they'd give me credit again. i would try other fish with them at this point and QT them as well.

should i remove the other clown from the environment and switch tanks after taking out the little one? i kind of am running out of places to put these fish. i do notice a lot of gunk on the bottom of the 5 gallon bucket. not sure if that's stuff falling off the fish. the fish still looks distressed.

Whenever I qt a new fish, I always to the hypo salinity method, look it up. In my opinion it's the best treatment for ich, secondly it is easier on the fish.

Dang that sucks...first off I wouldn't go back to that lfs. Try a different spot. Isolate the one still alive in a mother tank but make sure it's either cycled or use dr tims. I had a similar situation and I just did two fresh water dips and my clown survived and nothing spread in the tank...just lucky for me I guess. Good luck!

Which lfs did you go to? I'm in the market for a new pair of clownfish and would hate to get sick ones.

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i hate to say it since james has been so helpful, but it was vivid in woodland hills. he was the one that offered to replace the fish and then give me some tips. i didn't see any dead fish though nor did i see any signs of sickness in the other fish.

i have to say i was kind of disappointed given that they have been so highly rated. my pearly jawfish several months prior i got from them is fine though so maybe it's just the clowns.

Firstly sad about the lost of your clownfish! Did you say you got both pairs of clownfish from the same LFS? But before we blame the LFS. Question; how new is your DT before you put the first pair that you lost in the tank? Secondly, did you have a temperature change in your DT?


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So I got them from the same lfs. I never put them in the dt. But they were in the qt for three almost for weeks.

I did a water change about two days before I noticed they got sick and was wondering if it had anything to do with it. I changed five gallons out of the ten in the qt. I didn't heat up the water but the water temperature didn't change much after the change but perhaps it did... Why would temperature change matter with a parasite?

Regarding water temperature, I've read somewhere that it depends on the type of treatment being used, but a full and complete quarantine ich specifically could be as long as six weeks as your waiting for all of the trophonts to hatch, then fail to find the host fish. With warmer temps this can be shortened to 2 weeks or so, but the tolerance of the specific fish to the higher temp should be considered.

Firstly let me comment, in over 15 years in this hobby the only time I've had any fish that had or gotten ich was when I purchase a fish from a LFS, but mostly when the fish came from another country, whether it came direct to me or when the fish came to the LFS first. Which probably was very few that I had purchase a fish from a store, and will explain later my reason why. Honestly, I'm not an avid to QT, have I in the past yes. But Most of my fish obtained on forums or someone I knew. Because in most cases I knew the person passion for the hobby, the care for his aquarium. Since we are talking about clownfish, I purchase them from a breeder with the knowledge that the clownfish is tankbred.

Somewhere I read that a LFS make claims that ich is in all tanks...bullshit! I don't have anything against LFS, in fact occasionally I will visit one to see if they have something new, I'm always looking for something unique. What I'm referring to is corals you never know you will find something different. But in all honesty, all LFS put out all fish for sale the very same day the fish arrive. And I have never seen a quarantine room for there new arrivals.
Finally, consider the background of a fish before you get it. Was it shipped overnight and bagged up for 24+ hours, or for just an 1.5 drive home from the LFS? Was it eating when purchased? How long since it was shipped previously? Like I had mention, many stores simply offer fish up for sale the day they arrive. In this situation the fish hasn't recovered from that shipping stress and is about to endure another. Surely not a strategy doomed to failure, but also a stress unwise to ignore.



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That's odd. Which side were the clowns in at Vivid's tanks?.

I know Vivid copper treats their fish and disclaims that upon sale...so not sure if ich was from them.

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It may not have been the fish, rather the condition of your quarantine tank. Not established, not enough water changes, could be anything.

that's why i ask, i'm not sure if it's me or if it's them. i'd rather find out than blame someone else (even though i kind of did that) and then not have a solution if it was my QT.

in the first post i mentioned i had missed a couple water changes, but never went over 6 days without water changes. I always had added prime every other day in case i didn't change the water enough.

i had cleaned the tank before with vinegar, but yea... I don't know. the second clown seems to be doing well after some treatment. We'll see how it goes.