Disappointed with the health of the ORA clown fish.

Pitcom · Aug 17, 2008

I hate to say this, especially after waiting such a long time for these picasso clowns. I took them home in the bags from ORA and both fish had long white strings of poop hanging. Only one has eaten any food since thursday and they both appear to have white blotchy skin. One fish swims around and the other doesnt move 2 inches from its spot in the corner. These are the only fish in the tank other than my orange spotted shrimp goby so i don't think anything in my tank is stressing them out. What sucks is I leave for a week long trip tommorow so a friend is going to try and get them to eat for me. They look underfed and i dont like this long white poop because it usually means internal parasites or malnutrition. I am really disappointed with the general health and quality of these fish. I think I am going to write a letter to ORA.

Nate82 · Aug 17, 2008

wow sucks to hear that i've only heard good things about ora from the little ik of them i'm sure they'll make it right i would call or email rather than a letter because you'll get faster responses

MarvinsReef · Aug 17, 2008

yikes... sorry to hear about this Pitcom... did you try feeding frozen cyclops? mine did the same thing for the first day or two but I fed frozen cyclops and they started nibbling on a few... now both are eating mini mysis, rod's food, dried cyclops, and frozen cyclops... good luck...

Blue Ribbon Koi & Marine · Aug 17, 2008

Pitcom said:
I hate to say this, especially after waiting such a long time for these picasso clowns. I took them home in the bags from ORA and both fish had long white strings of poop hanging. Only one has eaten any food since thursday and they both appear to have white blotchy skin. One fish swims around and the other doesnt move 2 inches from its spot in the corner. These are the only fish in the tank other than my orange spotted shrimp goby so i don't think anything in my tank is stressing them out. What sucks is I leave for a week long trip tommorow so a friend is going to try and get them to eat for me. They look underfed and i dont like this long white poop because it usually means internal parasites or malnutrition. I am really disappointed with the general health and quality of these fish. I think I am going to write a letter to ORA.

You say you took them home in ORA bags?? Were they direct from ORA to you, or did they make a stop in a store>? I may be able to shed some light on the subject....

Pitcom · Aug 17, 2008

They got shipped to a local shop here. They were never taken out of the ora bags. I didn't want them getting acclimated to two different tank systems.

Pitcom · Aug 17, 2008

MarvinsReef said:
yikes... sorry to hear about this Pitcom... did you try feeding frozen cyclops? mine did the same thing for the first day or two but I fed frozen cyclops and they started nibbling on a few... now both are eating mini mysis, rod's food, dried cyclops, and frozen cyclops... good luck...

I tried the ora glow, spectrum +A pellets (the one fish ate a few of these), blood worms, brine and mysid. My friend who is watching the tank has some of the really small cyclopeeze and is going to try that for me. Whats funny is the one ate the first night and just spits everything out since then.

Reef Pets · Aug 17, 2008

I have had hundreds of ORA fish including Picasso's in my tanks over the last several years. In the beginning I could not get them to eat. I tried the ORA food that the fish eat at ORA and still nothing.
I have found one food that they will eat everytime! Frozen Cyclopeze. Thaw it in a cup of some of your tank water then pour it in the tank. Step back from the tank and they will eat it. Whatever they do not eat the coral and crabs will love you for it.....
I have found that they typically will not eat anything for the first 24-48 hours.
Hope this helps!!

Pitcom · Aug 17, 2008

reefer said:
I have had hundreds of ORA fish including Picasso's in my tanks over the last several years. In the beginning I could not get them to eat. I tried the ORA food that the fish eat at ORA and still nothing.
I have found one food that they will eat everytime! Frozen Cyclopeze. Thaw it in a cup of some of your tank water then pour it in the tank. Step back from the tank and they will eat it. Whatever they do not eat the coral and crabs will love you for it.....
I have found that they typically will not eat anything for the first 24-48 hours.
Hope this helps!!

Thanks for the advice. My friend is going to try some for me. I'll post an update when i get back next weekend.

Azurel · Aug 17, 2008

You can try Articpods as well, much like Cyclop-eeze but not frozen. Reef nutrition makes it in little bottles that need to be refrigerated. My clowns go nuts for it and my Borb Anthia also eats it which I was surprised to find out......Good luck bro hope all works out for you.

oceanparadise1 · Aug 17, 2008

man thats no good i was just about to order some black ones... i might re think this now

Blue Ribbon Koi & Marine · Aug 17, 2008

Azurel said:
You can try Articpods as well, much like Cyclop-eeze but not frozen. Reef nutrition makes it in little bottles that need to be refrigerated. My clowns go nuts for it and my Borb Anthia also eats it which I was surprised to find out......Good luck bro hope all works out for you.

All great advice! What I can tell you from my experience about fresh shipped fish from ORA is that acclimation if of the utmost importance! They are small fish, and are generally shipped in small amounts of water. I have found pH to be very low upon arrival. As the fish sit in the bag during shipping they obviously foul the water, creating a high ammonia environment. The ammonia is not as toxic at low ph, but once you start adding your tank water at a higher pH the ammonia becomes 10 fold more toxic. Upon arrival in my shop we used to see a lot of clowns lying on their sides for quite a while after "acclimating" some made it some didnt. What we have been doing very succesfully is adding amquel + to the acclimation process, binding up the ammonia as we increase the pH to normal level. Deaths have basically been reduced to zero, and we never have them lying on the bottom for hours, and they are usually eating pellets within hours. SO in a nut shell, acclimation of any recently shipped fish in a small bag of water is tricky. Just my thoughts on why you may have had a problem initially, but then again for all I know you could have acclimated this way! Hope that helps a little.
john

Pitcom · Aug 17, 2008

johnnybv said:
All great advice! What I can tell you from my experience about fresh shipped fish from ORA is that acclimation if of the utmost importance! They are small fish, and are generally shipped in small amounts of water. I have found pH to be very low upon arrival. As the fish sit in the bag during shipping they obviously foul the water, creating a high ammonia environment. The ammonia is not as toxic at low ph, but once you start adding your tank water at a higher pH the ammonia becomes 10 fold more toxic. Upon arrival in my shop we used to see a lot of clowns lying on their sides for quite a while after "acclimating" some made it some didnt. What we have been doing very succesfully is adding amquel + to the acclimation process, binding up the ammonia as we increase the pH to normal level. Deaths have basically been reduced to zero, and we never have them lying on the bottom for hours, and they are usually eating pellets within hours. SO in a nut shell, acclimation of any recently shipped fish in a small bag of water is tricky. Just my thoughts on why you may have had a problem initially, but then again for all I know you could have acclimated this way! Hope that helps a little.
john

That's good advice. I actually acclimated(just slowly added tank water, thier water tested at 7.4 ph) these fish for that simple fact they were in a bag with a small amount of water. I've had fish do the half dead dance before because of not acclimating. These guys sat at the bottom of the tank for about 5 minutes and then took off swimming. I was really pretty stoked they didnt have a hard time. It's good to know that some shops like yours, take care of thier fish when they get them in. Alot of shops around here just float and drop. I'm sure its a bit more expensive and time consuming to give them a proper acclimation as a shop owner, but its good the customer is getting a healthy specimen.

Blue Ribbon Koi & Marine · Aug 18, 2008

Pitcom said:
That's good advice. I actually acclimated(just slowly added tank water, thier water tested at 7.4 ph) these fish for that simple fact they were in a bag with a small amount of water. I've had fish do the half dead dance before because of not acclimating. These guys sat at the bottom of the tank for about 5 minutes and then took off swimming. I was really pretty stoked they didnt have a hard time. It's good to know that some shops like yours, take care of thier fish when they get them in. Alot of shops around here just float and drop. I'm sure its a bit more expensive and time consuming to give them a proper acclimation as a shop owner, but its good the customer is getting a healthy specimen.

I believe in the ORA product, and have built my business by only providing properly acclimated, eating, health specimins. Hope they are doing well. Dont ever be afraid to by anything ORA, they produce great stuff!
john

Pitcom · Aug 25, 2008

Wanted to give an update on the fish. My buddy was able to get the fish to eat while i was away on vacation. So the good news is that they are now eating, and eating alot. I've been feeding them the new life spectrum anti bacterial pellets. The bad news is the white blotchy skin has gotten a ton worse. One of them looks like thier scales are going to peel off. I'm not too familiar with clownfish diseases to know exactly what it is, maybe some type of fungus? Anyway, i need to figure out something for these guys soon because i really dont see them making it for the long run in thier current state.

paintballer768 · Aug 25, 2008

Please post pics and I can see what I can do. Possibly brooklynella?

Pitcom · Aug 25, 2008

Thanks for any advice. This is the good side, they are currently in lights off mode so i can only take a shot of the one side. There was a couple small patches when i first got the fish and has spread to this over a period of about 10 days. Want to add that both fish have it, and they are both still pooping really long white string.

Nate82 · Aug 25, 2008

beautiful fish though...

Pitcom · Aug 25, 2008

After looking at some pics on some other sites it really does look like brooklynella. I'm just wondering why these fish have this disease. If anyone else thinks thats what it is, i'd like to hear your opinions. I have 12g nano that i just tore down that i could use for a hospital tank.

Pitcom · Aug 27, 2008

Update on the pair of picassos. They look pretty bad off. i talked to ORA and they feel it is a parasitic infection, definately not brook. They recommend treating the fish with metranidazol. I don't know much about the medication, but somone on reef central had the same problem with thier pair of picassos they got the same time i did. They treated with the medication and everything seems to be fine, so hopefully i can get my hands on this and set up the qt tank very soon. Just wanted to point out that Laura at ORA was real courteous and helpful over the phone.