My Tomato Clown is Blind and his fins are eroding. What can I do?

Probably the most important information you can have to help you in the diagnosis of your fish problems is a test of your waterquality two or three times monthly, at a minumum. The following tests would be best: Ammonia, Nitrite, pH, and maybe even dissolved oxygen. Other, rarer tests of possible import could include Hydrogen Sulfide, and Nitrates.

If I could, even if water quality is not the cause here, I would try to get you to test for; at a minimum: Ammonia and pH.

If water quality checks out okay, I'd recomend that you consider a parasitic cause of the malady.

To treat most parasties in Marine systems, consider copper a good choice.

Copper is ot be used in Marine systems not containing Sharks, skate or Rays, nor should the system have, or ever be intended to have, Invertebrates like crabs, and anemones. Sponges and corals also perish in even the lowest copper levels.

To save fish lives, however, copper would be used to provide 0.2 ppm indefinitely.

Care should be taken to measure the copper concentration while adding it and daily therafter. You will be surprised at how it drops after addition, and how you need to keep adding it for a few days to get that 0.2 ppm level.

Test copper 2x daily when treating with this dangerous chemical. Do not add any

more when the concentration crests 0.15-0.2 ppm.

When you are tired of the copper, and your fish have been well for a while, then add Carbon to the system filter to remove the carbon. Carbon should be run for a month to collect the copper that slowly leaches BACK out of the substrate and corals skeletons decorating the tank.

Carbon is accused of dumping phosphates into the water, so maybe a resin that binds phosphates is indicated, I have never worried about it. I am not a reef keeper, and never will be.

Copper should be kept in for a minimum of 2 weeks to stop sensitive parasites like Cryptokaryon. As a side note, Copper suppresses the acitivty of immune cells in fish, and is hard on filter bacteria, upsetting De Nitrification if concentrations get too high.

If you must avoid copper because you have sensitive species or specimens in the system, then consider Freshwater dips for the affected fish.

Freshwater dips. I want you to be cognizant of the following about that procedure.

* 1) Fish vary in the amount of time it takes for them to become stressed by the freshwater dip. Some marine fish seem to actually like dipping. Others become weak and near death in as few as 1-2 minutes, so alertness is the keyword.

A minimum dip, if the fish seems to be doing fine and you are bored waiting, is 7-8 minutes. It has been shown that 7-8 minutes is enough time to clear the fishes' surface of parasites. You have no choice if the fish appears stressed before that time: Remove him.

* 2) Use water that is dechlorinated by time or by chemical dechlorination.

* 3) Use water that is the same temperature as the system, or mother tank.

* 4) Use water that has the same pH as the mother system, eg about 8.3-8.5

I routinely keep a Marine Buffer or African Cichlid buffer on hand for buffering the pH of freshwater dips on my marine specimens.

* 5) After the dip, do not dump the dip water back into the tank. It is said that loosened parasites can be revived upon return to the marine environment, and in the case of TRematodes, (Black Ich) I could see this happening.

* 6) Dips should be done daily or every other day depending upon the fishes' response to it. If the fish is very weak, every other day may be all it can stand, but if still strong, daily affords more complete parasite eradication.

You will be dipping for a 14 day period, so get out your galoshes.

If you treat with copper, and can confirm that you have maintained the copper level at 0.2 ppm, and the fish is still not well, then stray voltage may be playing in the case.

Stray Voltage should be considered, but the diagnosis may not be so easy.

You need a volt meter that can detect high voltages at very low Amperages. I can recommend Radio Shack for this, because they speak Laymans Electrician. That is, they know what you are talking about and can reply, even though you are not a professional electrician.

I would recommend that you entice an electrician friend to come over and test your voltages for you.

Voltages over 6 are significant, but most strays read close to 100. Somehow I saw one at 180 and I can't explain it 'cause I am not, nor do I presume to be, an electrician.

Remember, the fish survive because the amperages of these strays tend to be low.

(There may also be some advantage to the fish that they are immersed in the charged water, and therefore are grounded within the system, but I am not sure of that. I do not have an Engineering degree. Click Here.)

Symptoms of stray voltage can include blindness, or apparent blindness, wandering, anorexia, wasting and lateral line disease, pale colors, and corkscrew swimming. Most common symptom is wandering and apparent blindness. Only the others have been reported.

If stray voltage and parasites has been ruled out, and the fish is still eroding away and having trouble, then the next step is to consider a Copper resistant parasite. One way to make this diagnosis is to freshwater dip the fish, and if it seems better, then it is probable that the problem is parasitic.

See article on copper resistant trematodes.