newbie question

[SunkinNYC]

My son was given a 12 gallon salt water tank for a Christmas gift. I found a good local aquarium store and this site.

We have added live rock, snails, and small crabs based on this site's recommendations and the aquarium store management. We run our water tests frequently and have seen very stable readings all with-in ranges.

We added two clown fish about 12 days ago. One larger than the other. The larger one after 6 days began to what appeared to be shedding his skin...two days later it died. The smaller one looked healthy (i.e. brightly colored - no noticable changes)...but died today - 4 days later.

We ran tests both when we got them, on day 5, day 8 and day 12. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary.

Water temp has been between 78 and 80...
salinity at 1.020
No signs of nitrates or nitrates...

The food we fed them is called Spectrum Marine Life

I only mentioned this as the fish appeared to not actually eat the food - it appeared that it would put the food in its mouth and spit out...repeat, repeat...

I have never had fish and reluctant to add fish again. Sorry for the long post..

Any help would be appreciated.

Also, we have a 12 gallon tank, 10 lbs of live rock, 6 larger size snails, 6 smaller size, and 3 crabs.

Thanks in advance

Andrew

 

[S.Reef]

I would bet that the two clownfish had clownfish disease. I would also bet that they were wild caught. What type of clownfish were they? Make sure any clownfish you buy are tank raised.

 

[Joe Fish]

Sounds like maybe marine velvet (Amyloodiniumiasis), which I guess is considered a clown fish disease. I lost a clown to this once early on. You don't see it too often in tank raised clowns so I would try to find them if you can. You can treat this with copper of possibly with a formalin dip. I don't like to use copper as it's fatal to any invert and it can have long term effects on your fish.

Sorry about the fish... look for tank/captive breed down the road.

 

[SunkinNYC]

Thanks for the information.

Unfortunately, I am unsure of what kind of clownfish.

I will give it another try and make sure they are tank raised.

Thankfully - all drains lead to the ocean when they got flushed.

Andrew

 

[S.Reef]

copper is not an effective treatment for clownfish disease, i would recommend a Malachite green or Formalin

 

[Lorna]

Brooklynella is the disease often referred to as clownfish disease and as stated is more prevelant in wild caught fish. When every possible try to get tank/captive raised livestock as it is not only more ethical (less stress on natural resources) but the fish/corals have been raise in a captive environment and are usually hardier and less likely to harbour parasites and pathogens from the wild.

For future reference you should really quarantine all new fish to ensure that they are healthy and not infected with anything that they can pass to other tank mates. Any medications should be administered in the qt tank to make sure you don't render your tank useless later as copper and medications are absorbed by the live rock and substrate which are lethal to inverts. Also, your sg is on the low side and you should gradually try to increase it over time to about 1.025