LabFishNGliderParents
George & Julie
... we had an issue with an oscellaris clown.
Got the tank up and running, had sand and live rock for awhile - our LFS seems pretty knowledgeable BUT sold us clowns that came from someone's tank and had been returned when the customer took their tank down (supposedly deciding that college and a saltwater tank were too much work at the same time).
anyway - it is entirely my fault - my husband wanted another pair but I felt so bad for that pair - I thought of them as "rescues" since I work with a non-profit education & rescue for sugar gliders, it was second nature to me to want the ones who seemed to need the most "help" I guess)... at the LFS they were swimming straight up and down as ast as they could in the corner of the tank... I felt bad for them and we bought them.
Once in our tank at home, after drip acclimation, they at first did the same thing they had at the store - the female also swam on her side at the surface a lot. They never hosted to anything and while the male often swam about after the first day or two, he didn;t liek to be away from the female and often ended up near her while she behaved erratically.
The LFS told us to feed OSI Spirulina flake so we did. They refused to eat. We got them Feb 11th and after they refused to eat until the 14th, we called the LFS and got told maybe the previous owner fed something different and they would eventually eat if hungry enough,
We live almost 2 horus from our LFS so only go once a week or so. We went again on the 18th and were given samples of "the tiny pellets clowns are fed as babies in hatcheries" and some Hikari Marine A pellets plus they sold us some pemysis frozen, a hippo tang, and a new piece of live rock, 5 blue leg hermits and 15 astrea snails. The male began eating when we introduced the forzen and while he still ignores the flakes most of the time he also munches pellets pretty regularly too - the hippo eats no problem... we still never saw the female eat specifically - though she did seem interested int eh new foods.
Her behavior continued to be fairly erratic and she began to swim sort of "listing" to the right... we being very new to the hobby had no idea this might be a swim bladder issue.
Yesterday, I found the female clown resting ont he bottom of the tank on her side gasping... she tried to swim but would lean tot eh right really bad when she did and always seemed to wear out quickly and sink back down when she did manage to swim any at all. The male refused to leave her but was getting a bit frantic. I registered at Reefland's forum and asked for help - I got a message saying my post had to be approved by admins before it could go on the site... it has STILL never been posted and my clown was dead within a half hour... floating at the bottom not the top and sort of "under" a rock ledge... though when I moved her out from under the ledge to remove her from the tank, she never floated to the surface. The male went NUTS for about 20 minutes after I removed her- zooming around looking for her, I guess. :(
There are pictures of our whole project - setting up and everything - HERE - the last few photos are of the female in obvious distress - sorry for the quality I couldn't find my camera and had to use my iPhone 3Gs which is hard to use with just the acintics on at that time of day (this was between 10:30 and 11:30 yesterday the 22nd of February)
We are just hoping for some input here - maybe some suggestions as to what might have been the issue - how this might have been better handled - what we can do to prevent such things in the future - and also whether or not we can get a new clown for our remaining (now lonely) guy without issue - he is still fairly small.
Thanks.
Got the tank up and running, had sand and live rock for awhile - our LFS seems pretty knowledgeable BUT sold us clowns that came from someone's tank and had been returned when the customer took their tank down (supposedly deciding that college and a saltwater tank were too much work at the same time).
anyway - it is entirely my fault - my husband wanted another pair but I felt so bad for that pair - I thought of them as "rescues" since I work with a non-profit education & rescue for sugar gliders, it was second nature to me to want the ones who seemed to need the most "help" I guess)... at the LFS they were swimming straight up and down as ast as they could in the corner of the tank... I felt bad for them and we bought them.
Once in our tank at home, after drip acclimation, they at first did the same thing they had at the store - the female also swam on her side at the surface a lot. They never hosted to anything and while the male often swam about after the first day or two, he didn;t liek to be away from the female and often ended up near her while she behaved erratically.
The LFS told us to feed OSI Spirulina flake so we did. They refused to eat. We got them Feb 11th and after they refused to eat until the 14th, we called the LFS and got told maybe the previous owner fed something different and they would eventually eat if hungry enough,
We live almost 2 horus from our LFS so only go once a week or so. We went again on the 18th and were given samples of "the tiny pellets clowns are fed as babies in hatcheries" and some Hikari Marine A pellets plus they sold us some pemysis frozen, a hippo tang, and a new piece of live rock, 5 blue leg hermits and 15 astrea snails. The male began eating when we introduced the forzen and while he still ignores the flakes most of the time he also munches pellets pretty regularly too - the hippo eats no problem... we still never saw the female eat specifically - though she did seem interested int eh new foods.
Her behavior continued to be fairly erratic and she began to swim sort of "listing" to the right... we being very new to the hobby had no idea this might be a swim bladder issue.
Yesterday, I found the female clown resting ont he bottom of the tank on her side gasping... she tried to swim but would lean tot eh right really bad when she did and always seemed to wear out quickly and sink back down when she did manage to swim any at all. The male refused to leave her but was getting a bit frantic. I registered at Reefland's forum and asked for help - I got a message saying my post had to be approved by admins before it could go on the site... it has STILL never been posted and my clown was dead within a half hour... floating at the bottom not the top and sort of "under" a rock ledge... though when I moved her out from under the ledge to remove her from the tank, she never floated to the surface. The male went NUTS for about 20 minutes after I removed her- zooming around looking for her, I guess. :(
There are pictures of our whole project - setting up and everything - HERE - the last few photos are of the female in obvious distress - sorry for the quality I couldn't find my camera and had to use my iPhone 3Gs which is hard to use with just the acintics on at that time of day (this was between 10:30 and 11:30 yesterday the 22nd of February)
We are just hoping for some input here - maybe some suggestions as to what might have been the issue - how this might have been better handled - what we can do to prevent such things in the future - and also whether or not we can get a new clown for our remaining (now lonely) guy without issue - he is still fairly small.
Thanks.
