Why does my clown fish lay on its side

When im sitting at the computer it goes back to laying on the sandbed, but when I walk up to the tank it greets me right away. I would also tell you to research drip acclimation as the floating the bag method sucks and can be stressful. All you need is a piece of air line to do it. A good acclimation will get your new fish off to the best start and give you most chance of success - I move hundreds of clowns and have never lost one after drip acclimating them properly. Also agreeing with upping temp and lower ammonia with wc.

I'm actually surprise you're seeing any ammonia if your tank has been up this long. He is visibly "special" in the way that his head and jaw have formed, he also lays down on the sand completely on his side. I honestly was expecting to come in and find him dead, but low and behold, he swims up in the column whenever food comes into play, or you point at him through the glass.

He eats like a horse and the crabs do not approach him as if he were "dying". I've pretty much come to the assumption that he is just a little off, and I will probably have to explain myself every time someone asks me why I have a dying clown in a Pico lol.

Your problem sounds like the classic new tank, new TR clown syndrome. I assume he is TR and a lot of the times when they are introduced into a new system, they go through a bit of system shock due to the introduction of all kinds of new bacteria and life forms parasitic possibly. TR fish are often bred and raised in what could be considered a quasi-sterile environment, barebottom, UV sterilized, etc.

I always seem to have a two week "funk" period with new TR clown fish, ORA being the most problematic for me. You could try a product like melafix, just make sure you get the marine kind and not the freshwater one.

Thanks to everyone who has replied to this post and given me tons of help, I will try to keep him eating. And I'll have to drive to petco to find some medication for my clownie. Haha yeah, when the lights are off and my parents wake up at 7am, they think my clown is dead.

But when I turn on the lights it swims normally as if there was never anything wrong with him. Still heavily breathing though, but not as heavy as yesterday, thank god. I was having the same problem with a pair of expensive snowflakes. I tried everything at first including garlic infused Marine-S, garlic infused freeze dried bloodworms, SF Mysis shrimp, Hikari Mysis shrimp They're still spitting out the Hikari Marine-S pellets my similarly sized black and white Clownfish absolutely adore.

If not, it should be safe to add something else. I have two clown fish one lays on the bottom on his side at night he looks dead but if I shine a light or tap the glass he wakes up. But I was told it normal sometimes when the lights are on he will hide in the back where I can't see him he must be laying on the sand because if he was moving i would see him. A few times I frantically looked around the aquarium to make sure he didn't jump out. He should be fine especially if he was tank raised.

Oh and the funny thing is The one that lays on the sand spends most of his waking hours swimming as fast as he can in cirlces around my 24G aquapod. Those Yellow tail damsels are the devil. Have watched one bully full grown tangs, maroon clowns, wrasses! They are crazy and have no fear. Good fish to get rid of! Good luck. Probably got spurned by the female and died heartbroken. My male lies in the corner occasionally but during the day he's up and around.

Find More Posts by EnglishRebel. David A. Crandall, M. Fatherree, M. Ken Feldman Jon E. Shimek, Ph. The swim bladder is a key organ of every fish as they swim with the help of it. This disease causes a condition when the bladder is damaged and it is not functioning any longer. The swim bladder disease is often caused by overfeeding the fish especially when they lack the ability to digest food properly.

In this case, you should reduce providing meals for a few days and feed it with food rich in fiber. Sometimes, different abdominal organs could get enlarged due to other diseases causing swim bladder disorder. Antibiotic treatment could be beneficial if the source of problem is parasites or bacterial. Usually, this disease is chronic and the treatment is meaningless. So, you should be ready to euthanize your clownfish.

Ammonia is a very dangerous chemical for fish as it may damage the gills and lead to death. In this case, you should start changing the water regularly. Once you notice that the chemical levels are balanced you can stop changing the water and start cycling your aquarium with good filters.

Like ammonia, nitrate is also another produced by fish waste. Generally, the symptoms are the same in both cases as they are caused by a chemical spike that causes trouble with breathing.

Nitrate is a relatively slow killer compared to ammonia and it might make the fish lethargic. As a result, your clownfish will most likely start laying on the bottom of the tank. You should use a test kit in this case also to check the nitrate levels. If it shows a high number then you should start performing water changes regularly and it will be a good idea to add a cycled filter to your tank as well. You must remember that the nitrate level should not exceed 20 ppm! It should be somewhere between ppm.

Some kinds of species are not capable of living everywhere and you should take into mind the space required for specific fish. This applies to clownfish as well.

Someone was here around noon and said that the clownfish were swimming around fine. So this happened within the last 6 hours. Should I try to put some food in the water to see if the clowns react? Maybe that would be a good indicator of how sick the fish is? Any idea what could cause a swim bladder problem, if that was the worse case scenerio? Thank you for the advice. So he has an appetite Normally both clowns are the marine equivalent of hungry hungry hippos so this is a bit disconcerting.