NEED HELP Volitan Lionfish

[Poseidon Lair]

I have a volitan lionfish that has been doing well. I went out of town for the weekend, which was mainly just gone for saturday, and when i returned i found my filter was clogged. My fish has just stayed at the top of the tank alittle on its side and swims around rarely. He also hasnt eaten in 3 days. i cleaned my filters and did and good water change when i returned. He usually eats really well. Does anyone have any idea what has happened. THe water is clean.

[soymilk]

Need more info, how old is the tank? How old is the fish? Is there any other fishes in there? What was the filter clogged with? Have you checked ammonia and nitrite?

[Sea-agg09]

There are probably still ammonia issues. How much water did you change out (%)?

[Poseidon Lair]

did a check. ammonia is around .25ppm everything else is 0. The tank is 46gal and is 5 months old. I did a 20% water change. I have a nuissance algea issue that i have been cleaning up. Thats what clogged my filter. The fish is an adult but i have only had it 2 months. I have a few damsels in with it. will be doing another 20% water change tomorrow to get rid of the rest of the ammonia. If it is an ammonia issue do i just have to wait it out a once i the water is clear for the fish to come back?

[nacra99]

did a check. ammonia is around .25ppm everything else is 0....

that's bad!!! That means either
1) your filter crashed!
2) something died in there and is slowly decomposing and releasing ammonia.
3) You don't have enough filtration to handle the ammonia (unlikely)

Either way, ammonia is pretty bad. Even a little bit of it can cause ammonia burns on the gills and affects the swim bladder somewhat. Which is probably why he's staying on top trying to get oxygenated air and swimming off kilter.

Start doing water changes to lower the ammonia. Try to increase areation by using an airstone or something that agitates the surface. This will get more O2 dissolved which may help your lion breathe easier with burnt gills. Count your fishes and see if anything "disappeared". It may be decomposing behind a rock somewhere.

More likely your filter crashed. For severely clogged filters, or filters that have stopped for a while, the aerobic (ammonia removing) bacteria starts to die and be replaced by anerobic ones. You may have lost enough aerobic bacteria when your filter clogged such that you start seeing ammonia.
I'd say the easy way (if your filter crashed) is to head on over to any good LFS and pick up a bottle of marine biospira (in a purple bottle). This adds nitrospira bacteria back into your water, replacing the ones that died off. Either that or keep up daily water changes until the bacteria regrows in your filter.

Good luck!