Chemical drop, wierd clownfish behavior...help im new!

[davidclepore]

Hello, im new here and not sure if i did this correctly..i could use help or words of advise, thanks in advance

Although ive owned countless freshwater aquirums over my life time...i recently got my first saltwater tank put together at the end of november 2023, just 30 gal to see if i could pull it off.....

on 1/8/24, after testing everything i possibly could to ensure a sterile and stable enviorment, we added two juv clown fish...they both came from the same tank at the LFS. Captive bred.....no host at this time (after secured pairing, host will follow due to spacing issues)....

right away tipical playful CF behavior..the belly shake/seizure, and domimance was established quickly...and off to the sunset they swam...

Until:

Diet
Premium small pellets 7am

Premium small pellets around along with prem seaweed pellets 11am

Small dose of sane pellets 3pm with some prem flake

Mysis freeze dried (rehydrated)
Prem pellets, & prem seaweed 730 pm

Lights out 9pm

They eat something of everything in thier tank...

Clearly over feeding, but im not sure how to make sure they get what they need until i understand thier behavior and eating style... I since lwarned about bowl feeding, and not letting anything on the tank floor...

Tank vacuumed daily, however i missed a water change the other day...


The nitrite (.5) and pH (8.6) got out of balence about a day and a half ago.. slowly brought it back to parameters by today at 5pm...during this time the female would not eat nor interact with the male....no fighting, ive seen a few nips this afternoon (ive kept them under close observation upon the moment female wouldnt eat)...they slept together, but the female spent all of the day off in a corner away from male.. Swimming like she was drunk, and mouthing the corner of the glass

...Do they just need time to bounce back from the chemical mess up of mine.???

Ask stated.. the chemical problem came from too much food on the floor...its been cleaned up with a decemt water change, vacuuming, with canister filter, protient skimmer, and hob filter at full speed...

The female is back to swimming around semi normally (non drunk) but still not interacting with playfull behavior....is there anything i can do to help both of them recover, do i need anything to help them? Any info would be very helpful...im so scared of killing them by accident... By far my favorite fish to date...

 

[Idoc]

Yes, I do believe you are way over-feeding these two clowns...which in turn is going to cause your NO3 and PO4 to get out of control real quickly. A 10-20% water change every 1-2 weeks should be sufficient to assist with keeping these numbers in check IF you are feeding less. To put it into perspective, I feed 5 fish and one large red serpent star one frozen cube of mysis shrimp per day...and my fish are very healthy and energetic. If your nitrification bacteria aren't up to speed yet, you could be causing some issues with ammonia in the tank...which will effect your fish AND cause some big issues soon with problem algaes.

As for the clown's behavior, I wouldn't sweat it right now. These fish do strange things all the time and their interactions aren't always predictable. In fact, I lost one of my clowns and the other one (male) seem happier now and more energetic to further swim around the tank. Just keep watching the behavior for possible disease issues: mucus sheathing on the fish (brooklynella), rapid breathing, flashing, or swimming directly into the flow from a powerhead.

Also, there's no need to measure nitrites in a marine aquarium...that's important to monitor in freshwater tanks, but no impact in a saltwater tank.

 

[LandLockedJones]

Hello, im new here and not sure if i did this correctly..i could use help or words of advise, thanks in advance

Although ive owned countless freshwater aquirums over my life time...i recently got my first saltwater tank put together at the end of november 2023, just 30 gal to see if i could pull it off.....

on 1/8/24, after testing everything i possibly could to ensure a sterile and stable enviorment, we added two juv clown fish...they both came from the same tank at the LFS. Captive bred.....no host at this time (after secured pairing, host will follow due to spacing issues)....

right away tipical playful CF behavior..the belly shake/seizure, and domimance was established quickly...and off to the sunset they swam...

Until:

Diet
Premium small pellets 7am

Premium small pellets around along with prem seaweed pellets 11am

Small dose of sane pellets 3pm with some prem flake

Mysis freeze dried (rehydrated)
Prem pellets, & prem seaweed 730 pm

Lights out 9pm

They eat something of everything in thier tank...

Clearly over feeding, but im not sure how to make sure they get what they need until i understand thier behavior and eating style... I since lwarned about bowl feeding, and not letting anything on the tank floor...

Tank vacuumed daily, however i missed a water change the other day...


The nitrite (.5) and pH (8.6) got out of balence about a day and a half ago.. slowly brought it back to parameters by today at 5pm...during this time the female would not eat nor interact with the male....no fighting, ive seen a few nips this afternoon (ive kept them under close observation upon the moment female wouldnt eat)...they slept together, but the female spent all of the day off in a corner away from male.. Swimming like she was drunk, and mouthing the corner of the glass

...Do they just need time to bounce back from the chemical mess up of mine.???

Ask stated.. the chemical problem came from too much food on the floor...its been cleaned up with a decemt water change, vacuuming, with canister filter, protient skimmer, and hob filter at full speed...

The female is back to swimming around semi normally (non drunk) but still not interacting with playfull behavior....is there anything i can do to help both of them recover, do i need anything to help them? Any info would be very helpful...im so scared of killing them by accident... By far my favorite fish to date.

Clownfish are really weird. There doesn’t seem to be much wrong with their behavior. The females bully the males a lot, but sometimes they just decide they do t want anything to do with them.

Food takes quite some time to break down and start adding nutrients to the system. So missing one day shouldn’t cause a problem.

I thought my male was going to die because he later on the bottom of the tank for 4 days after a family member watched the tank for me. Then suddenly he bounced back and that was a year and a half ago.

I think:
-decreasing the feeding.
-stop cleaning your sand/water every day.
-test for nitrates and ammonia.
-ensure you have good surface agitation to oxygenate the water.

Then just sit back and watch. I notice my clowns acted strange when I got close the tank for a long time. Any time I got up to it the female would attack the male. Who would panic and have a little seizure. She would also do it if she noticed I was looking at him too much. But if she just isn’t beating her husband lately, then lucky him. Don’t worry he will get on her bad side again soon.

 

[davidclepore]

Thank you both for these responces...saltwater fish are so much more dynamic mentally, than any other freshwater species i ran across dueing my time tanking...

I fogot to mention i had tested for ammoinia, it began to rise part way thru this ordeal...i caught it at .3, and elliminated immdeiately ...thankfully that wasnt much of an issue...

I have delt with disease many times in freshwater...this teaches how to find a suitable lfs...knoweldge is key...and understand who to buy from and who not to buy from are so important...thank you for affirming this point of attention...my gf thinks its not a big deal, but shes never been thru a massive tank devistation...although she has some experiance with large fresh water aquariums...


Thank you about the nitrites, i only assumed they mattered in saltwater aquariums because i never saw anything saying otherwise during the last 5+ years of reading about reef tanks.... Or i got too drunk to remeber...certainly the latter! Thanks again!



In terms of feeding, i have been super focused, and founding several methods that feed the fish, with very little ever hitting the substraint...


Power heads are a must in every tank ive had since i was a late teenager...thank you for mentioning it, i think i forget sometimes how valuable they truely are....


Once again, id like to thank both of you, for taking the time, to read thru what was happening...i always try to be complete, yet i always miss something...ie the power heads and air pumps at full steem! Or the ammoinia testing...


All the best, im sure we will cross words again!
Best
D

 

[LandLockedJones]

Nitrites are generally only tested for during a cycle for saltwater. It’s more of something to keep you busy really, as Idoc said it’s not necessary. Eventually nitrites convert to nitrates so rapidly you can’t measure them.

just try not to let the nutrients get down to 0 either. It’s cool to pull all of that excess food out, but if nitrates and phosphates hit zero you can end up with all kinds of nuisance algae’s like Cyanobacteria and dinoflagellates.

So don’t try and keep the tank absolutely spotless. You can let it build up a little bit. I just tested nitrates and phosphates earlier today.

Nitrates: 12.6ppm
Phosphate: .28ppm

Aim to keep nitrates under 20ppm and phosphates between .05-.1ppm. As you can see my phosphate numbers are a bit higher, but my clowns are fine. I do 10%-20% water change once a week. And replace a filter sock ever 2-3 days.

They really aren’t terribly difficult animals to keep. Clowns are pretty tough creatures. They will actually survive ammonia poisoning pretty regularly from improper cycling. Where more sensitive fish would not. Just keep the tank topped off with rodi water, feed them a few times a day and clean the tank once a week or so.

Keeping corals gets a bit more complex, but clowns are super forgiving, hardy fish. They are one of my favorite to.

One last thing though. How are you removing the ammonia? After a 6-8weeks your tank should have some nitrifying bacteria on the rocks and sand to process the ammonia for you. Especially with fish in the aquarium.

Have you been adding any bottled bacteria? Did you start with all dry rock? Or did you get wet/live rock out of a tank in the lfs.