Clownfish with a swollen mouth

I'm just gonna throw out all the info I have and hopefully someone has experienced this before.

I first noticed that my clownfish had a swollen mouth on 10-4-10. Its swollen up so can't close it completely. I have another clown besides him and a Behn's Damselfish/Bumble Bee Chromis. Neither of these two show any signs of stress or anything.

A few months ago I put a tank divider in because I was afraid the chromis would bully the others to the point that they would become stressed out and ill.

He does eat (I watch to make sure) brine shrimp and he can eat flakes once they fall to where he can get them. Sometimes it almost seems as though he can't see them. He will swim up to a piece like he's going to get it and then swim away as if he never saw it.:-/

This morning and that morning I got up at 4:45 am and he is laying on the bottom of the tank. Please excuse me for asking a dumb question but is this how they sleep? He seemed to recover and eat a little both today and that day.

Water parameters-As of this morning SG=1.029, 72 degrees. I do realize that the SG is high and will be correcting it when I get home. As of 10-21-10 Nitrite=.3mg/l, Ammonia=0mg/l, PH=7.7, (This was on water change day so if these numbers are wrong I was changing 1-1 1/2 gallons of water. Its a 10 gallon tank.) Carbonate Hardness=10 degrees.I use the TetraTest Laborett if that makes a difference. From what I've read it seems like most people use other brands of test kits.

The only things I add are Kent ProBuffer dkh, Kent Garlic Extreme and AquaSafe. I always add AquaSafe when I add any fresh or mixed water. I usually only add the ProBuffer to the new water I just mixed up. Since I set up this aquarium in January/February I've never had a PH reading over 8.0. Any advice on this would be really appreciated!

I use water out of the sink at the bus garage as I have hard water that has traces of ammonia in it at my house. Pet Supplies Plus here in Alliance also uses Alliance water, city water. Sometimes I do rinse the hydrometer with tap water at my house and I use it to clean off the canopy too. But I never use that water to fill the aquarium.

I'm kinda at a loss as to what to do. I keep hoping he will get better on his own. Any advice or suggestions would be great! One last thing, I did want to post pictures but at 5 am this morning I only had my phone. The ones I did get, you really couldn't make anything out anyway.

 

Sometimes silly clownfish will mouth corals that sting, like frogspawn and alike, and this results in a swollen mouth. So if you have recently added any corals please list them and include a picture of the clownfish if you will.

 

the clown might have ate a bristleworm.... I have noticed a couple of my fish have done that and then their lips are swelled open. If he is eating then he is fine!

 

Ok, just got home. He isn't doing to well. He is kinda hanging around by where the heater and air line are, upper back corner. I'm running the tests now. So far PH=7.7 again. Any ideas? Would I be right to add Pro Buffer dKH?

Nitrite is less than .3mg/l. Carbonate hardness=11 degrees. Ammonia isn't done yet.

Should I just go a head and do a water change?

No, I don't have any corals yet.

Thank you for your posts!

 

my lfs told me that one reason for the ph not rising enough is because there is a certain sludge which accumilates in the filter, have a look see, how often do you clean your filter?

 

Ammonia=0mg/l. I offered them brine shrimp and he did eat some however he is back to hanging around in that back corner. He just isn't swimming right.

I last cleaned my filter on 10-13-10. By cleaning it I mean I took out the filter media and rinsed/washed out the inside of it. I did not use soap, just old water that I took out and my fingers to try and get the junk out. There really wasn't any. Mainly I wanted to rinse out the impeller area good. Sometimes sand gets up in there.

Also let me throw this out there. A lfs said that as long as my filter media is intact I could leave it in there indefinitely. I did recently change the activated carbon in there but I sometimes just rinse the bio-bag off in the old water just to get the big stuff off. By the way this is a HOB filter, a Tetra Whisper. I hope this helps.

 

schackmel makes an excellent point here.

Did you bring the SG down or was 1.029 an error ?

Glad the fish is doing better.

 

I added some fresh water and SG=1.027 now. I did go ahead and add the Pro Buffer dKH.

Here is another thing. Sometimes he lays on the bottom for a few seconds on his belly. Could this maybe be some sort of spawning thing?

Where do bristleworms come from. I only have two pieces of live rock. They both have some sort of thing that lives in a white tube. Maybe aiptasia? What is really interesting is that one one side of the divider I have just the filter. That side's rock just has a green covering to it with the tube things and one or two bubble like green things. On the other side I have the heater, an air stone, and a small power head. On this side the rock has the same tube things and also long hair algae. Its getting so tall! I have no idea why its like that.

Just trying to consider everything.

 

The white tube things are feather dusters. Harmless. The round green things are probably bubble algae. You should probably do something about the hair algae.
I've seen clowns hang out by all kinds of equipment, kind of like hanging out in an anemone, it's their safety zone. Other than a swollen mouth, it doesn't sound to me like there's anything wrong with him.
Bristleworms can live in the rock.
A 10 gallon tank divided in half isn't much room for fish, IMO. When I had a 10 gallon, I only had 1 fish in there.

How old is this tank?