Clown fiah twitching after copper treatment and during prazi treatment

Acalin · Mar 3, 2022

Hello, all!

I have 4 fish in QT (2 clowns, a royal gramma and a blue tang) and about 3 days ago I finished the Coppersafe 32 day tratment. (2 extra days to be safe at therapeutic dose which was kept between 2.3 - 2.6 ppm during the 32 day period - used Hanna checker for copper measurements which I did daily).
Reason I did the Coppersafe treatment (which I'll refer to as copper treatment) was because my Blue tang had ich and so I assumed they all got it from him (royal grama was also showing a few small

I gave them a 3 day break after the 32 day copper treatment and during this time I did about 50% water changes daily to reduce copper levels. Also used Seachem Cuprisorb.

Today, I was still measuring around 0.22 copper, but I decided to start witht the next treatment - Prazipro.

Added the 2.5 ml for my 10 gal tank and kept monitoring. All seems ok, except...
One of the clownfish I noticed twitching quite a bit. Not sure if it had something to do with the fact that I just fed them (mysis and brine shrimp), or because of some parasite or disease.

I noticed the clowns doing that in the past, during copper treatment too, but I kept trying to fins reasons: i.e. treatmetment in progress, wounds healing, copper is maybe irritating them, etc. Seeing them doing this during copper treatment made me think I should do the prazi as well, just in case they have flukes.
Also to note that one day during coper treatment (about half way in), I gave them a freshwater bath (freshwater in which I still dosed copper to maintain therapeutic level), just because the 2 clowns seemed to twitch a little more than usual. No sign of flukes in the clear glass bowl after the FW bath.

So back to today, I have the prazi now in the tank and this fish keeps twitching and now I start to worry because I am not sure why or what else I can do. (Here are links for 2 videos I made):

clownfish twitch

youtube.com

clown fish twitching

youtube.com

It seems like he's also trying to scratch his mouth on that PVC pipe (which I've also seen before during copper reatment and made me think it was flukes in the gills). But then again, outside of these episodes, the guy is behaving normal, seems to breathe normal, eats normal.

My last step after prazi would be metroplex (preventive), but I don't have high hopes that would help with twitching.

At some point I thought they might be playing or something as I notoced the clowns doing similar twitching when they got close to each other.

Any ideas, advice from anyone is welcome!
Thank you!

fishguy242 · Mar 4, 2022

@Jay Hemdal @vetteguy53081

Jay Hemdal · Mar 4, 2022

Acalin said:
Hello, all!

I have 4 fish in QT (2 clowns, a royal gramma and a blue tang) and about 3 days ago I finished the Coppersafe 32 day tratment. (2 extra days to be safe at therapeutic dose which was kept between 2.3 - 2.6 ppm during the 32 day period - used Hanna checker for copper measurements which I did daily).
Reason I did the Coppersafe treatment (which I'll refer to as copper treatment) was because my Blue tang had ich and so I assumed they all got it from him (royal grama was also showing a few small

I gave them a 3 day break after the 32 day copper treatment and during this time I did about 50% water changes daily to reduce copper levels. Also used Seachem Cuprisorb.

Today, I was still measuring around 0.22 copper, but I decided to start witht the next treatment - Prazipro.

Added the 2.5 ml for my 10 gal tank and kept monitoring. All seems ok, except...
One of the clownfish I noticed twitching quite a bit. Not sure if it had something to do with the fact that I just fed them (mysis and brine shrimp), or because of some parasite or disease.

I noticed the clowns doing that in the past, during copper treatment too, but I kept trying to fins reasons: i.e. treatmetment in progress, wounds healing, copper is maybe irritating them, etc. Seeing them doing this during copper treatment made me think I should do the prazi as well, just in case they have flukes.
Also to note that one day during coper treatment (about half way in), I gave them a freshwater bath (freshwater in which I still dosed copper to maintain therapeutic level), just because the 2 clowns seemed to twitch a little more than usual. No sign of flukes in the clear glass bowl after the FW bath.

So back to today, I have the prazi now in the tank and this fish keeps twitching and now I start to worry because I am not sure why or what else I can do. (Here are links for 2 videos I made):

clownfish twitch

youtube.com

clown fish twitching

youtube.com

It seems like he's also trying to scratch his mouth on that PVC pipe (which I've also seen before during copper reatment and made me think it was flukes in the gills). But then again, outside of these episodes, the guy is behaving normal, seems to breathe normal, eats normal.

My last step after prazi would be metroplex (preventive), but I don't have high hopes that would help with twitching.

At some point I thought they might be playing or something as I notoced the clowns doing similar twitching when they got close to each other.

Any ideas, advice from anyone is welcome!
Thank you!

That’s actually mating behavior! The shaking is saying to the other clown, “hey check me out” and the biting is the clown preparing the substrate to lay eggs.
Jay

Eagle_Steve · Mar 4, 2022

Jay Hemdal said:
That’s actually mating behavior! The shaking is saying to the other clown, “hey check me out” and the biting is the clown preparing the substrate to lay eggs.
Jay

I agree with this.

@Acalin

Normal mating behavior and a good sign that the clowns are paired. It also means they are healthy and wanting to reproduce.

Once in display, they will find a "safe" spot, do that, lay eggs, care for the eggs, then eggs will hatch and typically become food for the rest of the tank. You can raise the fry, but it requires a separate setup, feeding notifiers and then very small food until they can accept normal food. Lot of work with little return from a typical hobbiest.

Either way, congrats on a "breeding pair" of good looking clownfish.

Acalin · Mar 4, 2022

Jay Hemdal said:
That’s actually mating behavior! The shaking is saying to the other clown, “hey check me out” and the biting is the clown preparing the substrate to lay eggs.
Jay

I thought about that as well, but then again, I was thinking "I wouldn't be that lucky to get a male and female clown and furthermore, not that lucky that they would try to conceive"!
But I am happy that it's not a sign of disease or parasite!

Maybe I could ask to have this thread moved to the proper section, in case someone else that's a rookie like me will need help with same question?

Thank you again all for your support!