Breed Clownfish | Saltwater Fish

[Kathy]

Scott,

I started feeding new food and vitamins to my breeding pair yesterday. Normally they both are very aggressive eaters.

But today. My female hardly ate at all. She is hiding in the shell and she has a trail of waste that is kind of stringy looking. She is still swimming around, but she goes from the clam shell on the bottom of the tank to the conch shell.

The male seems fine.

What should I do ????

[admin]

It looked like someone might have already answered this one, but my two cents anyways. In another post I touched on some of your possible causes. It sounds to me like a water quality issue. I would get a small protein skimmer and possibly a little more live rock (as cured as possible). Keep us posted. I bet a water change would help along with less feeding. I only feed my fish once a day enough food to eat for about 2 minutes.

[Kathy]

Thank you Scott.

I am only feeding once per day ...I think she is back to normal now.

I will have the water tested tomorrow.

[UNIXMan]

Sometimes they just have a bad day or two, and water quality could be a factory. But if you have "a trail of waste that is kind of stringy looking" she could have an intestinal worm. Very possible. Check out wetwebmedia.com -- lots of good info, if you think it *is* a worm. I thought I had that once, but it was the quality of the frozen food I was giving them. Never feed them something that doesn't look good enough for you to eat yourself