Clownfish CPR!
This morning I had a close call with with my black ice clownfish and maxi-mini carpet.
I decided to turn on the lights this morning to check something out while all the corals were "sleeping". Before doing so, I noticed the clownfish were swimming in their normal spots...near the front glass since they haven't started hosting yet. Anyways after turning on the lights, I noticed my black ice/snowflake clownfish tail sticking out of some rocks in the back at first I thought perhaps it was trying to (unsucessfully) hide.
However, after a few seconds I realized in fact that its lifeless tail was sticking out of a maxi-mini anemone! So I quickly shut off the pumps and grabbed my forceps which sit beside my tank. By the time I did that ...merely seconds, the clown was completely enveloped inside the nem. Its head was halfway down the mouth! I shook and poked the nem and it eventually spit the clownfish back out.
The clown was completely lifeless...floating sideways and sinking to the bottom. Luckily I was able to snatch it up before it got behind some rocks. I then gently swished it back and forth in my cupped hand to get water moving across its gills...a move I know from catch and release trout fishing. After about 30 second of no sign of life, it twitched its tail and manage to slip from my grasp.
The outlook still appeared grim as its was sideways and still sinking with no sign of life...in fact he sank back down near another anemone. So I managed to once again get him and continue the swishing motion in my cupped hand. He occasionally would twitch but didn't seem responsive to anything when I stopped moving him back and forth. After about 3 minutes of this, he started to come back around and was swimming vertically in the water.
I decided to put him in a floating container for the day since I wasn't sure how he would do in the tank full of various anemones and fairly strong flow. I placed him in a temporary container while I punched holes in another with a covered lid. By the time I got him settled in the isolation container, he appeared to be swimming around and looking like he would make it. So, I'm crossing my fingers that he'll be ok when I return home today.
I am now thinking this is the same exact thing that happened a couple weeks ago when a picasso clownfish came up missing but I didn't notice it. This one particular maxi mini is 3-times the size of my other one (and I don't feed them). I had tried to remove all of the maxi minis from my system last year but couldn't get a couple out of there.
So from now on, no more sudden flipping on of tank lights. I plan to program a macro in the controller to bring the lights up quickly over a minute or two to avoid freaking out the fish if I need to manually turn them on for any reason. My fish normally have a very gradual sunrise and sunset because I use the controller to dim the leds so they may be more sensitive than others.
I have to wonder how hard it is on fish to be in a system with instant on lighting (like fluorescent lights or LEDs without controllers)?
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There's nothing like being a Reefer!
Doesn't sound promising.
