Time to Euthanize?

[Drayven]

I have a 30 gallon tank that has 3 convict cichlids in it. For the past 1.5-2 months one of them has been having trouble swimming. She lays on her side on the bottom and when she tries to get to the top she doesn't seem to have the strength to make it up that high and instead falls back down. To keep her fed I've been giving them batches of brine shrimp and every few days when I put in the floating cichlid pellets I toss some sinking shrimp pellets towards her and she can usually grab 1 or 2 before the other greedy bastards steal them. I'm thinking she likely has some sort of swim bladder problem and I've tried a couple different types of treatment but nothing seems to work so I'm pretty sure it's not bacterial or whatever. The question is, is it cruel to keep her alive and should I put her down? She spends most of the day in a little cave she's built under a rock and the other fish don't seem to pick on her too much or anything but it doesn't seem like a very good life. I don't think she's starving to death because she's able to get some brine shrimp and pellets in her system every couple days or so. Just wondering what you would do.

 

[meegosh]

My last diamond tetra (about 4 years old now) has been swimming crazily for a while now. I have him in QT but nothing seems to help. I'm content on just riding it out. If he stops eating then I will euthanize but otherwise I still hope for the best! Whatever you decide, just do it humanely.

 

[mommytron]

what treatments have you tried? is she bloated? if it is constipation or a swim bladder problem, you could try feeding her some peas to help with bloating. just microwave them in some water, then cool them off and pop them out of the shell, smoosh up the insides of the pea and drop it in the tank. do a few peas so some makes it to her before the others gobble them up. hope she makes it

 

[Drayven]

She doesn't seem bloated. I haven't tried peas yet but on the advice of my LFS I started adding freshwater salt to the tank to keep it at about 1tsp/gallon. I also treated with some medication I don't know the name of but it was a white powder that came in clear gelcaps that I was told to put in the water then treat again after 48 hours. I also tried a 2nd round of that same sort of medicine from another vendor a couple weeks later. Part of the reason I started with the brine shrimp was to help with constipation because I had read that they would help. I'll give the peas a shot but I would think that 2 months of constipation would have killed her by now.

 

[Vircomore]

If you're going the route of using medications - make sure you don't have any activated carbon running in your filter or your tank. The carbon will just suck up the medication and prevent it from doing anything for your fish.

 

[meegosh]

I would try some peas first before any other meds. It did fix a swim bladder issue on one of my neons.