Internal Parasite or something else!?

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peterw

New Member
Hi,

I am new to this whole salt water fish taking care of thing, please be patient with me if I do not understand something.

I have completely cycled my tank and have total of 4 fishes in there: three damsel and a percula clown fish. But I feel like the clown fish is losing color (half of its body is getting abit darker) and weight.

I got the fish from someone who took down their saltwater aquarium (they had the setup for about an year).

When I first got it, it seems to be alot bigger and the color seems more vibrant. The original owners tank have a lot of different color algeas.

I think it is an internal parasite, but if that is true how come it still grew to what it is and start to shrink now?

I check my ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. Only nitrate at about 20 ppm.

Am I just not feeding it enough? When I am not in the room, he is always hiding. When I am around he will start to swim around a lot more. He is also the most aggressive fish in the tank at the moment, picking on everybody! even me when I pick my hands in the tank, lol. Please help, I want the clown to be healthy again.
 
C

Curehead

Member
peterw said:
Hi,

I am new to this whole salt water fish taking care of thing, please be patient with me if I do not understand something.

I have completely cycled my tank and have total of 4 fishes in there: three damsel and a percula clown fish. But I feel like the clown fish is losing color (half of its body is getting abit darker) and weight.

I got the fish from someone who took down their saltwater aquarium (they had the setup for about an year).

When I first got it, it seems to be alot bigger and the color seems more vibrant. The original owners tank have a lot of different color algeas.

I think it is an internal parasite, but if that is true how come it still grew to what it is and start to shrink now?

I check my ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. Only nitrate at about 20 ppm.

Am I just not feeding it enough? When I am not in the room, he is always hiding. When I am around he will start to swim around a lot more. He is also the most aggressive fish in the tank at the moment, picking on everybody! even me when I pick my hands in the tank, lol. Please help, I want the clown to be healthy again.
Click to expand...

Water changes can help....also it could just be the stress of changing tanks
 
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Exo

New Member
I would post this in the fish disease forum http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/fish-diseases-treatments/.

Pictures are needed. Also we need more tank information. How big is your tank? What is your filtration method? We need a full list of parameters including salinity, pH, and temp. What are you feeding?

Curehead makes a good point about the stress and a water change couldn't hurt. I doubt its an internal parasite unless the fishes behavior has changed. Is the fish gasping for air at the surface or does it have a swollen body? Really a picture would help a lot.
 
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peterw

New Member
Sorry, don't have camera to take a pic with. The fish does not have a swollen body. The body looks just fine, it just seem to lost weight and its color is not as bright as it use to be. He is not grasp for air on the surface, his behavior remain unchanged.

But I have check the parameters you have mentioned. I am currently in the process of lowering the salinty because it is slight above the green zone by .002. pH around 8.2. And temp is at 80.

I have a 75 gallon tank, wet/fry filter, and a protein skimmer.

I think I might have figure out the main problem. The whole time I thought my protein skimmer was working and the reason why there is no foam in the skimmer because my water is too clean. Just today I was messing around with it I realize that the skimmer need air bubble to work. So right now the skimmer is really starting to create foam.

So my current plan is to do water change to slowly decrease the salinity, let the protein skimmer run properly, and get me some garlic sauce for the fishes. Being the biggest fish in the tank, he does not eat much compare to one of my damsel (hence garlic), I think he is just picky. Thank for all your guys reponses
 
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Swanheezy

Member
your damsels could be picking on him and stressing him out, i had that happen and i had to get rid of the damsels, then bought 2 more clowns (3 total) and they picked on this one clown i just had to make a new tank for the clown. but he losted color and hid all the time hes happy in his new tank now though
 
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peterw

New Member
Hi,

Yeah I being told that the damsels will get aggressive when they get older, but right now they are still young about 1 inch or less. They are definitely not picking on the clown, since he is double their sizes and I always see the damsel running from the clown and hide in the rocks. The clown will get extremely aggressive when they enter his territory. thank you for looking out for my fish.
 
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