Just lost a clownfish due to cynaide poisoning

[Firestarter]

I bought a false percula from one of our sponsors 3 days ago. She told me that the clownfish was from bali, and it looked different from the normal $1 false perculas so I bought it.

It looked healthy and always swam about in the open, never once hiding in the LR.

Symptoms of cyanide poisoning:

1. Not feeding. I tried feeding frozen brine and mysis, pellet, and dried foods, but it would suck the food in its mouth and then spit it out again.

2. White poop

3. Erratic behaviour, however it seemed alert

4. White patch on its head

Can I conclude that its cyanide? Last night it was swimming happily, disturbing my star polyps and now its lying on the tank floor breathing heavily.

Well it just sucks to still have fishes being cyanide caught, and being sold especially from our sponsors too.

[sanjaypills55]

Hi Bro!

Sorry to hear about your loss!!

It sad that fishes are caught using this method!

I am not sure about the symptoms of cyanide poisoning!

But somebody did tell me those $1 clowns are caught using cyanide.

That they reason they are sold so cheap, cause once they are stunned using cyanide they can be easy picked up from the sea bed!

Hope are LFS in Singapore are more responsible & stop selling such livestock!

[jyoon]

I doubt common clowns are caught wild. They are normally aquarium breed.

[FuEl]

Clownfishes in the aquarium trade in Singapore are still >90% wild caught. Captive bred ocellaris clownfish are available, but it is not economically feasible for people to breed such clownfish for sale in Singapore. This is because wild caught ocellaris clowns have such a low wholesale value. Unless consumers are willing to pay many times more for captive bred clownfish and understand why captive bred fishes will cost more, I doubt there will be much improvement in the trade of wild caught ocellaris clownfish.

Wild caught clownfish are very susceptible to brookynella, which usually causes mass mortality in wild caught clownfish shipments. This might have been the white patch which you have seen. The white poop usually indicates an internal parasite problem, which can be cured using products like Prazi-pro. Avoid buying clownfish which look pale or seem to have a coat of mucus on them. This is usually a sign of brookynella and common medications will not help. You need either a good formalin-based medication or chloroquin phosphate to deal with this disease.

Cyanide is usually used to catch fishes which hide in rocks and are hard to catch. Clownfishes are easy to net and there is no need to utilize cyanide. My guess is that they are cheap just because of pure abundance in the wild.

[Firestarter]

Hi Fuel, thanks for the very useful information you provided. This is the first time I've heard of brookynella, are internal parasites one of the symptoms?