clown problems?? and a parasite??

hey guys, i bought 2 clowns toady, first fish in my tank, i took my time to acclimitaze them properly i think and also tested the water the day before, heres the results..

Nitrate less than 0 ppm? (not detected by test)
Ammonia 0 ppm
Phosphate 0ppm
Nitrite less than 0.1 ppm
ph is around 8

salinity 1.026
water temp 79 deg

anything else i should test for right now?

its a hagen nutrafin test kit, no strips, pretty good i think paid over 100$ for it....

they seem to be just staying in one corner of the tank and not moving much, occasionally coming out a bit but then going right back...

they dont seperate they always stay together and swim right beside eachouther...

they did eat some frozen food i fed them about 3-4 hours after acclimitazing them... but only very little

and on one of them theres a little RED kinda jalapeno looking thing on one of my clowns gills that i brought home today, he is also breathing pretty heavily..

there ocellaris clowns and i just introduced them to my tank today,
heres how i introduced them...

put bags in tank to get water temp right
15 min
added some tank water
15 min
added more tank water
15 min
added to tank

15 min in between each step

---turned lights off for 2 hours
then turned lights on

is this normal for them to be in one spot for a while, and the one is breathing heavily??

and as for the RED jalapeno should i try to remove it? what is it?
please help!

heres a video (CENTERD ON THE ONE WITH THE JALAPENO LOOK ON ITS GILLS)



PLEASE HELP ME OUT
thanks alot
t

 

o and by the way i have 3 astrea snails, 3 red banded turbo snails, a peppermint shrimp and 5 blue legged hermits and theyre all doing fine, so are my zoas....

 

At first look, your pH is a bit too low at 8.0. It's a bit too acidic, try to slowly raise it to about 8.3 over a week or so. What type of water are you using? If you aren't using RO/DI base water when you mix your salt, or "good" sea water (like Catalina sea saltwater), that may be a contributing factor. Remember, chlorimine, chlorine, copper, etc won't show up in standard tests, which are very harmful to the livestock.

 

ok ill look to raise the ph, and i am using distilled/purified water with oceanic natural salt..

there still going this morning... im going to feed them in a bit.

and as for the red jalapeno thing anyone know???

 

Many companies that claim distilled and purified water will still have huge amounts of TDS in the ater, it's not as distilled as they claim. I tested some local grocery store distilled water when I was waiting for my replacement membrane to arrive and the pure distilled water showed just over 800mg/L TDS. My output RO/DI is about 10mg/L. If possible, try using RO water instead and do a 25% water change. The jalepeno thing could just be enflamed gills from the low pH of the water. It's acidic and could be causing a burning irritation. I hope this helps.

 

ok im going to take a sample of the water to the lfs today to see if they can test for tds,

and i see the jalapeno better now its a LITTLE BUG looking thing and its moved to his tail fin now....

any ideas on how to get it off?

o and thanks for the help

 

A picture would be so beneficial. Should really invest in a camera when you're in this hobby

In the meantime, sounds like a parasitic isopod. If it is now off it's gills, catch the fish and pry it off with a pair of tweezers (as recommended by wetwebmedia).

 

They really won't be able to test TDS of saltwater since the salt is a dissolved substance. If they do test for TDS, it will be in the 1000mg/L range or so, assuming clean RO/DI water was used. If you bring them some of the purified water, that will help eliminate that possibilty. If you buffer fresh water to make it 8.3 pH, you can try giving him a freshwater dip for a minute or so to see if that will shock any parasites off his body. It is the same thing that can be done for ick. Just pull him out if he starts to breathe hard and shows signs of distress.

 

+1 on the tweezers for the isopod.
In the video, the clowns looked happy as far as I could tell. Work on getting the PH up for sure. As far as them being attached at the hip, perfectly normal. Most likely male/female. Mine wont even sleep unless they are physically touching each other.

 

hehe ya, i went to the lfs twice today and the water i was using checked out fine... the ph is low and salinity is a little high so im doing some big water changes over the next couple days to correct it.

and as for there movement i talked a bunch with the woman at the lfs and everything is fine.

staying in the one spot etc etc especially when new tank is normal... and not leaving eachouthers side..

and i got the PARASITE OFF!!! yay he is breathing better now (although still not totally normal) because of the whole ordeal of getting it off i think.... the bugger wouldnt let go..

so hopefully its all solved and thanks for the help everyone!