Clownfish are dying!

Ugh, so now the second of my 200$ phantom pair is dead :( Im really not sure whats going on.. no fighting, visible parasite. I have been feeding them alot... like they had pretty round bellies for a while so i cut back.. but they start off swimming lower. then they start hovering over one spot on the bottom not being very active for a few days... then all of a sudden just bam.. floating somewhere.. but this one was doing better than the other.. he was out swimming about and eating happily just a few hours ago. Wasnt showing nearly as many signs as the last one, and in fact was doing better than before! Wondering if i should be worried about the mocha picasso i put with the one that just died... but he looks very healthy and is very active.

Ahh yes, well tank is in pretty darn nice condition. No ammonia nitrite, and probably very low nitrate. Low phosphate assumed also because I have very little algae growth. Temp is held around 76.8 currently. It is on the apex table. Tank is about 3 months old. I have a naso tang, just added flasher wrasse. bicolor blenny, banggai cardinal, Twin spot goby, just added a yellow goby. 1 chromis, other just disappeared. I call it the rule of chromis, get 2, expect 1 to make it. Looked like it wasn't doing too well either, only had it for about 3 days. Looked like it had taken a beating or something. But was added after other clown died. Running a UV sterilizer, I keep the inside of the tank very nice, and make sure we don't allow any aerosol or anything to get into the tank. I have birds which have very sensitive respiratory systems so I know all about using smelly things and chemicals around birds and tanks.

I have been doing a bit of research and it appears to be some sort of Octomita/Hexamita, other internal protozoan and possibly worm parasites, or worms. It seemed to be internal with the chronic round gut. Saw a few stringy white poops a few times, but not much... It was several weeks with the round gut and only recently did they start acting weird. Before they were swimming around just fine.

Heres tank thread

http://utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=77272&title=pilots-54gal-rimless-build

Edited by pilotx44 - November 02 2015 at 7:48pm

So you added 4 new fish just recently? All at the same time? That could be the reason in a quite new 54 gallon tank.

I added the naso in September, and then the female clown died about 2 weeks ago, then I added the wrasse a few days ago along with a nano yellow goby. The twin spot was added about a week ago also. So it was a gradual introduction. That's true though, I shouldn't assume. However I don't have test kits for those, so maybe I will take in a sample to be tested tomorrow. I do have algae growth and I did actually let it get to the point where I had to do deep cleaning with a metal scraper, so there is some nitrate or phosphate, however it doesn't accumulate very quickly and theres no explosion in hair, cyano, diatoms or other algae. Im running biopellets so that may be why its not very high. Corals are doing much better too and growing and coloring up from a large transport.

Some pics

Not a terribly bad emergency. I just want to know a bit more so I can watch my other clown. The other fish are happy as clams and eating like pigs.. so im not really worried right now. Just kind of confused

Seems to me more like a bacterial or viral infection. The pics of the dead fish show a reddish tinge of color on the upper half of the body. It looks like a sunburn but it's more likely an inflammation caused by disease, perhaps exacerbated by light. 

Edited by Mark Peterson - November 03 2015 at 9:01am

Generally an internal bacterial infection will present as more streak-like, not a uniform appearance. Internal bleeding will do that, and the fins look like the result of aggression.

Stringy poop can occur from a lot of things...including a bland or steady diet. What were you feeding?

It looks awful bloated to me as well. So sad. I don't know where you got them, but when you are ready to buy more there are a couple of great places that sell tank raised. But that clearly would be in the distant future. Sorry for the loss that sucks!