Clown fish swimming on side

[ljvasche]

My large female percula clownfish started behaving strangely about 5 days ago. She has been lethargic just hanging out around the bottom of the tank, and sometimes even laying directly on the substrate. She hasn't been eating much. I noticed yesterday she was starting to lean to one side when swimming around.

Tonight I got home and found the clownfish hovering completely on her side about an inch above the floor not moving around at all. She is just flapping her fins, occasionaly freaking out like she is having a seizure. Her breathing is pretty rapid. Her coloring looks totally normal.

My tank is a small 30g with 2 clownfish, a baby niger trigger, 2 hermit crabs, and a chocolate chip starfish. I tested the water and everything came up normal. My other two other fish look totally healthy, although I think my little clown is pretty upset about the other being sick.

Any ideas on what could be causing this? I'd be grateful for any possible solutions. I'd hate to loose her!

[ChrisPrusha]

I have no idea, but I am going to bump you. I hope things get better!

[dobejazz]

Welcome to TRT I hope she starts to feel better

[TheReefer12]

How long have you had the clown? How long has the tank been set up? If there was a recent shock to the system, this may have caused what is happening to the clown. I had this happen to me and lost the clown. It was due to a shock to the system. My parameters weren't where they needed to be and I didn't perform the acclimation properly.

Brian

[ljvasche]

My tank has been setup since last May...but I recently moved to into a new house and had to move my tank. Moving the tank definitely would have been a shock for the fish.

My large clown ended up dying. Then the male clown died the next day too. The male had shown no signs of illness but he did almost seem to be mourning the death of the female clown. Fortunatley my little niger trigger is looking very healthy and swimming around more than ever.

I'm going to wait a week before I buy my new clowns just to make there isn't something in the tank that might kill the trigger.

Thanks for the help!