Clownfish disease ID

[Ian_B]

I noticed some minor blemishes on my black and white clownfish yesterday which I didn’t think much of, but now today there are clearly whitish patches on her. I’m afraid it might be Brooklynella, but she seems to be acting normal, swimming around, eating, no heavy breathing. I wanted to get some more opinions on it before I order medication and qt her (and I guess her partner as well)

 

[Ben.QLD2]

That is brooklynella. I can't see it being anything else, especially in a clown. You will need to treat all of your fish in a QT with formalin and run a fallow period on the DT.

I had a tank crash from brooklynella a few years ago, I thought it was velvet because it presents differently on non clownfish. With clowns, though, it's quite distinctive.

Unfortunately copper for velvet won't treat brooklynella. Formalin based medications are the way to go.

You'll want to get onto it as brooklynella can be fast spreading and rather lethal.

 

[vetteguy53081]

This is a clear case of brooklynella
The most significant sign is the amount of slime on its body. The thick mucus on its body is a second sign which is noticeable on the fish. This mucus generally starts at the facial area as well as gills and spreads across the body producing lesions as it progresses often confused with ich and can turn into secondary bacteria. Other symptoms will be lethargic behavior, refusing to eat and heavy breathing from the mucus.
Typical treatment is a formalin solution is mixed with in a separate container with either fresh or saltwater. Start with a quick dip in the formalin at a higher concentration then performing treatment in a prolonged bath of formalin base at a lower concentration in a quarantine tank. The longer the fish are exposed to the formalin treatment the more effective it will be at eliminating this issue.
If a formalin solution is not available for immediate use, temporary relief can be achieved by giving the fish a FW bath or dip in water same temperature as display tank. Even though this treatment will not cure the disease, it can help to remove some of the parasites, as well as reduce the amount of mucus in the gills to assist with respiration problems.
Treatment is best done in a QT tank using either quick cure (more effective but now harder to find) or Ruby Rally Pro. Ruby takes a little longer and initial treatment generally takes 2-3 days to really start going to work.
With the advanced stage of this- I recommend immediate quarantine of all inhabitants and leaving display without fish for 4-6 weeks.
A quarantine system if you dont have one can be as simple as a starter tank kit from walmart which has most of the essentials

 

[Lavey29]

I agree. It's brook

 

[Ian_B]

Ok thank you. I’ll order formalin. How much do you dose for a bath, and then the lower concentration for the qt tank?

 

[Ben.QLD2]

Brooklynella

Brooklynella hostilis (updated 6-9-2023) What You Need To Know: * This is most often seen with clownfish, but it can afflict other fish (usually in the gills) as well. When a clownfish has Brook, the skin will appear to be peeling or sloughing off. Which is actually excess white mucous coming...

humble.fish

 

[Jay Hemdal]

While I agree that it LOOKS like Brooklynella, if it is, it is an early case. Black and white clowns show excess mucus very clearly, sometimes when it is due to just stress. More history would help - how long have you had this clown, when was the last clown that you added to the tank, is it getting along with all of the other fish?

Prepare for the worst, but hope for the best.

Ok thank you. I’ll order formalin. How much do you dose for a bath, and then the lower concentration for the qt tank?

Typically, I dose 25 ppm as a static bath or 150 ppm as a one hour bath with good aeration. The dosing formula is: ppm * gallons / 266 = ml of formalin. So - for ten gallons of water dosed at 25 ppm, it would be: 25 * 10 / 266 = 0.94 ml

Be sure to get formalin that is 37% formaldehyde, not 10% NBF

Jay

 

[Ian_B]

I’ve had that clownfish for about 2 years. About 6 weeks ago her partner died suddenly. There was no sign of disease or odd behavior. So I waited the 6 weeks to see if anything happened to the survivor. She seemed fine other than acting really skittish so I thought a new partner would help. I got the new partner for her on 3/9 and then 4 days later I noticed the excess mucus on her in the picture. So I did order the formalin and ruby reef rally pro, but the next day she started to look better. I decided to hold off on doing anything else to stress her and now she looks back to normal so I’ll keep an eye on her and if the excess mucus comes back I’ll probably do the formalin bath, etc.