New to all things saltwater-with a stressed clown fish

[Rosanne]

Hi everyone.. My son and I just started a salt water tank.. 65 gallons, live sand live rock, RO water..sump with protein skimmer.. a few minor adjustments with alkalinity but mainly everything was going well.. tank cycled quickly with two damsels.. its about 4 weeks running. We just added 2 clowns this past Thursday.. They were fine, then this morning while one seems fine.. the other one is acting very strange, not eating.. just floating straight upward , looks like he is swimming but going no where.. and he has been doing this non stop for hours.. When I feed them flakes or frozen mixture of shrimp.. the one guy is fine.. like i said but this littler guy will start swimming around but like right passed the food almost like he can't see it.. Any suggestions or ideas .. I would really appreciate it.. ps the only problem is the alkalinity is a little low we added buffer to the sump..

 

[al0ha]

Your cycling process may not be complete yet, also you shouldnt really cycle ur tank with fish. I would suggest putting them in a bucket and try to sell it off until ur tank is more mature

 

[Rosanne]

The people in the fish store said everything was fine.. we took the Damsels out waited another week and had the water tested, the store thought we would be fine for fish..I feel bad for the fish now.. how do you know when you are fully cycled?

 

[masterswimmer]

Rosanne, welcome to MR and welcome to the world of reefkeeping.

The only way to know your cycle is complete is by testing your water with saltwater test kits. What you want to watch for is ammonia, nitrite then nitrate. What happens in a cycle is the following:

1 - your ammonia on day 1 will read zero. As your cycle begins the ammonia will spike up very high.
2 - as the bacteria in the system processes the ammonia, it converts it to nitrites. This is when you'll see your ammonia levels return to zero, and your nitrites will spike high.
3 - when the bacteria processes the nitrites, it converts it to nitrates. Your nitrites will drop to zero, your nitrates will spike high.
4 - when your nitrates drop to under 20 ppm your cycle will be considered complete.

The waste your fish produce will be the 'food' for the bacteria to sustain their levels. This 'food' can also be the same flake/pellet/frozen food you add to your tank for your fish to eat. Therefore it is more humane to cycle your tank with prepared food as opposed to using live fish. High ammonia levels (nitrites too, but to a lesser degree) will burn the gills of the live fish. It is painful and potentially fatal for the fish.

Unfortunately the advice offered by your LFS was most likely self serving (they make sales) and not in your best interest.

Best of luck and remember, take it SLOW. Natures reefs took millions of years to mature to the levels they're at. Don't expect to have your system up and running in 1-2 weeks, it's just unrealistic.

Hope this helps,
Russ

 

[jcdeng]

Hi Rosanne, from your description, I am sorry to say but that floating clown might not make it. I had this happened before, everything looks fine with the fish, its just not acting normal, not eating and usually when I pretend that I am going to net him, he darts away, but when he was at that state (floats on near the top of the water), I was able to catch him even with the scope of my hand... I hope I am wrong though, best of luck.

And just so that you know, what happened to one of my fish, that problem wasn't contagious, all my other fishes are fine while it happened and many months afterwards.

 

[jcdeng]

BTW, if you want to treat him, put him in a hospital tank with heater and sponge filter (or any filter just take out the chemical filtration) add metronidazole, dos accordingly and hope for the best. result is 50/50.

 

[rbtwo4]

Listen to Russ aka Masterswimmer. if u didnt test ur water urself dont go by what the LFS guy says. hospital tanks and all that stuff aint going to solve the problem that is ur tank might not be cycled. so instead of dosing ur tank with all these things that u might think is the problem is a bad idea and will cause another problem.

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

The clown not doing good in your tank has no indication on whether your tanks is fully cycled or not. A new fish in a new environment acting like that could be of any reason, for example, improper acclimation process, weak fish to begin with, stress due to other fish, stress due to the handling, disease in your tank, disease in your fish, headcrash/heart attack(one of my midnight proton die like that when I pour water from one bucket to the other )....

Four weeks usually is good enough for cycling BUT, as Masterswimmer has said, the only way to tell FOR SURE is to use chemical test kit. You can search About.com for complete details of the theory and procedures of cycling a tank.

Imo. You should suspect more on the acclimation process or look for disease than doubt the ammonia issue at this time frame.

 

[Dre]

The clown not doing good in your tank has no indication on whether your tanks is fully cycled or not. A new fish in a new environment acting like that could be of any reason, for example, improper acclimation process, weak fish to begin with, stress due to other fish, stress due to the handling, disease in your tank, disease in your fish, headcrash/heart attack(one of my midnight proton die like that when I pour water from one bucket to the other )....

Four weeks usually is good enough for cycling BUT, as Masterswimmer has said, the only way to tell FOR SURE is to use chemical test kit. You can search About.com for complete details of the theory and procedures of cycling a tank.

Imo. You should suspect more on the acclimation process or look for disease than doubt the ammonia issue at this time frame.

Good call...
If you're keeping just fish all you need to do is change the water that's it.
And don't feed the fish too much. A new tank can not handle a heavy bio load and will cause a spike in ammonia and nitrite. A little nitrate is not bad, that's a sign nitrite is been broken down to a less toxic form...

 

[Dre]

I would do a 20% water change with the new water the same temperature as the tank water. Let it mix for 12- 24 hours if preferred. And keep in mine whatever you put in the tank stays in. So be sure to clean your skimmer, test weekly and do your water changes accordingly...