Anorexic fish

[gfeb]

Good morning, I am at a last ditch effort to do something to save my fish.

I have a naked clown fish that I have had for at least 12 weeks now. He had since been one of my healthiest and most vigorous eaters. about three weeks ago he decided to stop eating. Shortly after I did start to notice the stringy poop. I gave it a few days but he continue to refuse all foods. So I put him in a small hospital tank. I have been doing 30% water changes daily. I also have dosed the tank with Prazi pro twice now. Prior to that I was doing general cure in the DT. I also did a freshwater dip when I initially started noticing his behavior change.
Honestly since he has been in the QT tank he has perked up and seem to be more active. However he still refuses to eat even though I offer all kinds of foods, and I have even been soaking it in garlic. He seems to get excited with the garlic but does not eat it. He is now very thin. I am honestly surprised he is still alive. My husband is convinced that he is eating in the middle of the night.
Tank parameters are all normal.
all of the other inhabitants in the tank are fat and happy (including corals and inverts).
I wake up every day expecting to see him dead, but he continues to persist. He clearly wants to live but I do not know what else to do to help him.

help him

 

[Timfish]

Fish can have internal as well as intestinal parasites and metabolic issues that cause them to stop eating. Have you tried live baby brine shrimp? there are hatchers that make it pretty easy to feed daily.

 

[gfeb]

Fish can have internal as well as intestinal parasites and metabolic issues that cause them to stop eating. Have you tried live baby brine shrimp? there are hatchers that make it pretty easy to feed daily.

I haven’t tried live feeding yet. I’ll pick some up. Anything else I can do medication wise? I want to give him every chance.

 

[SlugSnorter]

Good morning, I am at a last ditch effort to do something to save my fish.

I have a naked clown fish that I have had for at least 12 weeks now. He had since been one of my healthiest and most vigorous eaters. about three weeks ago he decided to stop eating. Shortly after I did start to notice the stringy poop. I gave it a few days but he continue to refuse all foods. So I put him in a small hospital tank. I have been doing 30% water changes daily. I also have dosed the tank with Prazi pro twice now. Prior to that I was doing general cure in the DT. I also did a freshwater dip when I initially started noticing his behavior change.
Honestly since he has been in the QT tank he has perked up and seem to be more active. However he still refuses to eat even though I offer all kinds of foods, and I have even been soaking it in garlic. He seems to get excited with the garlic but does not eat it. He is now very thin. I am honestly surprised he is still alive. My husband is convinced that he is eating in the middle of the night.
Tank parameters are all normal.
all of the other inhabitants in the tank are fat and happy (including corals and inverts).
I wake up every day expecting to see him dead, but he continues to persist. He clearly wants to live but I do not know what else to do to help him.

help him

Prazi is mainly for worms, use copper, KanaPlex or something that treats viral + bacterial

 

[SlugSnorter]

I haven’t tried live feeding yet. I’ll pick some up. Anything else I can do medication wise? I want to give him every chance.

Prazi is mainly for worms, use copper, KanaPlex or something that treats viral + bacterial + maybe worms internally if you already did a full course of prazi

 

[Flameback Pair]

@gfeb I would immediately stop soaking food in garlic. I have done a lot of personal trials with garlic and other food enticers like Seachem Entice. Soaking the food is just overpowering the taste and they can’t taste the food at all just the garlic. At first they like the taste as it’s new and exotic but then there looking for regular fish food again. Try squirting a teaspoon of garlic oil on your own food, every single bite! That much garlic on a single bite is too overpowering let alone every bite you eat. I have found that garlic oil is so concentrated that one drop in 100 gallons of tank water goes a long way. Just use an eye dropper and drop a single drop in. The fish can definitely smell it in the water column in much more diluted concentrations as that. At that level the smell and not the taste is what always does the trick for me every time. I do it a minute before I feed to get their appetite up. What’s more garlic is a terrestrial food and shouldn’t be fed directly to fish and just the smell of it should be used. There is research that garlic is damaging to their liver.
As far as live food, Petco almost always has live copepods for sale in small bottles. If you can’t find them ask a store clerk.

 

[SlugSnorter]

@gfeb I would immediately stop soaking food in garlic. I have done a lot of personal trials with garlic and other food enticers like Seachem Entice. Soaking the food is just overpowering the taste and they can’t taste the food at all just the garlic. At first they like the taste as it’s new and exotic but then there looking for regular fish food again. Try squirting a teaspoon of garlic oil on your own food, every single bite! That much garlic on a single bite is too overpowering let alone every bite you eat. I have found that garlic oil is so concentrated that one drop in 100 gallons of tank water goes a long way. Just use an eye dropper and drop a single drop in. The fish can definitely smell it in the water column in much more diluted concentrations as that. At that level the smell and not the taste is what always does the trick for me every time. I do it a minute before I feed to get their appetite up. What’s more garlic is a terrestrial food and shouldn’t be fed directly to fish and just the smell of it should be used. There is research that garlic is damaging to their liver.
As far as live food, Petco almost always has live copepods for sale in small bottles. If you can’t find them ask a store clerk.

OP was using garlic? thats is awful for fish, its hurts way way more than it helps

also OP, record fish overnight to check for eating, but fish can last like 2 weeks or more without food (not saying its good that its not eating)

 

[Sharkbait19]

If it’s internal parasites, prazi does nothing for that. Levamisole or metro will work much better on that. Prazi is more for flukes.

 

[gfeb]

@gfeb I would immediately stop soaking food in garlic. I have done a lot of personal trials with garlic and other food enticers like Seachem Entice. Soaking the food is just overpowering the taste and they can’t taste the food at all just the garlic. At first they like the taste as it’s new and exotic but then there looking for regular fish food again. Try squirting a teaspoon of garlic oil on your own food, every single bite! That much garlic on a single bite is too overpowering let alone every bite you eat. I have found that garlic oil is so concentrated that one drop in 100 gallons of tank water goes a long way. Just use an eye dropper and drop a single drop in. The fish can definitely smell it in the water column in much more diluted concentrations as that. At that level the smell and not the taste is what always does the trick for me every time. I do it a minute before I feed to get their appetite up. What’s more garlic is a terrestrial food and shouldn’t be fed directly to fish and just the smell of it should be used. There is research that garlic is damaging to their liver.
As far as live food, Petco almost always has live copepods for sale in small bottles. If you can’t find them ask a store clerk.

Well I wasn’t using concentrate and garlic oil. I was mincing garlic myself and using the juices. But either way it doesn’t matter he still was not interested. Didn’t even try to eat. I just picked up some live brine. Will see how that goes.. also got some copper to try if still no luck. Thank you all for the insight.

 

[Timfish]

As mentioned above you can use prazi for intestinal parasites. Sorry, not much works for internal parasites, you can try the antibiotics mentioned above but I wouldn't expect too much. Please do post updates especially if something helps.

 

[gfeb]

As mentioned above you can use prazi for intestinal parasites. Sorry, not much works for internal parasites, you can try the antibiotics mentioned above but I wouldn't expect too much. Please do post updates especially if something helps.

I have tried feeding live brine a few times now. Still no interest. Surprisingly he still seems quite energetic since I started prazi. So maybe it’s working. I have not noticed the white stringy poop in a couple of days.
now it’s just the eating battle.
still doing daily water changes and offering food 2-3 times a day.
I am thinking of returning him to the DT tank if nothing changes. Maybe the feeding frenzy will get him going?

 

[Sharkbait19]

You should not bring him back to the dt. He is still sick, and you risk infecting the tank if he goes back before being 100% better.

 

[Sebastiancrab]

Why not post a video and let's get @Jay Hemdal to help.

 

[gfeb]

You should not bring him back to the dt. He is still sick, and you risk infecting the tank if he goes back before being 100% better.

Why not post a video and let's get @Jay Hemdal to help.

Yup I’ll get one after work.

 

[gfeb]

Why not post a video and let's get @Jay Hemdal to help.

 

[gfeb]

Yup I’ll get one after work.

 

[gfeb]

Well videos aren’t working… not sure why but here’s updated pics

 

[gfeb]

*UPDATE*
Fish has made a turn for the BETTER.
he started eating yesterday. Slowly at first and spitting it out but today is holding it down.
I was offering live brine 2 times a day. After about 4 Attempts he started going after them. Just now I gave a bit of his regular prepared flakes and he took them too.
looking a little chunkier as well and breathing less quickly.

what seemed to work was the prazi. He got 2 total doses. Spaced 72 hrs apart and 25% daily water changes. The brine was also a great idea— so thank you.
.
follow up questions:
1- how long do I keep giving prazi? (I’m a human doctor and we always say compete the treatment even if looking and feeling better— there’s no instruction on the prazi for how long to treat)
2-how many days/weeks should he stay in QT— assuming he continues to improve?