Tetra acting funny...please help

[Dragonchild85]

Greetings.

I have a school of 4 senea tetras...only one is affected by this. Last night he started swimming head up, tail down vertically. This morning, he'd swim for a bit, then lay down on the gravel gasping. I put him in a breeder container, and added some stress coat, but I can't find anything online about this. It is only one fish, and he was fine beforehand. There is no discoloration or obvious changes to his appearance.

 

[Zagz]

What are your parameters for the tank? How long have you had the tetras? I had a serpae tetra that swam like that for months with no other ill effects. But he didn't have any gasping or trouble breathing. Keep him in the QT tank and monitor the parameters in both tanks, and keep an eye on him. Good luck.

 

[Volker]

One of my Neons does the same thing... only without the lay down part... rocking around in a >75 degree angle... when I saw it the first time I really thought I can net him out the next morning... that was about 7 weeks ago.
But the heavy breathing part has me worried... lost an Angel a couple weeks ago with the same symptoms... vertical swimming, heavy breathing, laying down... it was over in 24h
Good luck.

 

[Volker]

teeny tiny update on my dancing neon... he ended his stage life ... saw parts of him carried around by one of my blackskirts... how fitting...

 

[sudz]

:S As soon as a fish looks like its dead, or on death row (i.e. not moving at all, even when touched, but still breathing) i throw them in ice water for an hour then flush them :-(

Is that generally what most people do? I'd prefer to cull the fish than let it suffer for its last few hours.

Also... where does the term "belly up" come from, when most of the fish that i've had die on me have sunk?<-------------( Morbid topic, but i find that slighty funny)

 

[greenmaji]

with proper maintance and QT fish illness and death are actually quite rare.. Ive had less then 12 fish pass of an illness on my watch in 17 years.. I would like to talk about being proactive in keeping a fish healthy rather then the last throws of its life.. JMHO though..

but since you brought it up.. clove oil and freezing in tank water is the normal proceadure for euthinization of a fish that has an illness thats not curalble/and or deathly contagious to other tankmates.. please try doing a search for this on the board and google for more information sudz..

Dragonchild85...
the tanks paramiters.. NH3/NH4, NO2, NO3 in ppm would be helpfull..
Has the PH been stable?
Maintaice rotine such as how often you clean your filters media and how do you do this? and how often and how much water in % and or gallons do you change?
what filter make and model are you useing on the tank?
what is the temperature of the water and has it stable?
have you had any problems with illness in this tank before?

I suggest that you take the BIG pleco to a LFS for credit, cash or donation.. your tank is not large enough to suffectly house this fish..
HTH

 

[Dragonchild85]

with proper maintance and QT fish illness and death are actually quite rare.. Ive had less then 12 fish pass of an illness on my watch in 17 years.. I would like to talk about being proactive in keeping a fish healthy rather then the last throws of its life.. JMHO though..

but since you brought it up.. clove oil and freezing in tank water is the normal proceadure for euthinization of a fish that has an illness thats not curalble/and or deathly contagious to other tankmates.. please try doing a search for this on the board and google for more information sudz..

Dragonchild85...
the tanks paramiters.. NH3/NH4, NO2, NO3 in ppm would be helpfull..
Has the PH been stable?
Maintaice rotine such as how often you clean your filters media and how do you do this? and how often and how much water in % and or gallons do you change?
what filter make and model are you useing on the tank?
what is the temperature of the water and has it stable?
have you had any problems with illness in this tank before?

I suggest that you take the BIG pleco to a LFS for credit, cash or donation.. your tank is not large enough to suffectly house this fish..
HTH

(note to self, update profile! 8O )

I did donate Godzilla....he topped out at 14 inches at the time I donated him...and they were thrilled!! I now have a Purevian Leopard Pleco....that i never see...

Anyway, back to the tetra. Here's my parameters:

pH: 6.0
NitrItes: 0 ppm
NitrAtes: 60 ppm
Ammo: 0 ppm

1. Has the PH been stable?
2. Maintaice rotine such as how often you clean your filters media and how do you do this? and how often and how much water in % and or gallons do you change?
3. what filter make and model are you useing on the tank?
4. what is the temperature of the water and has it stable?
5. have you had any problems with illness in this tank before?

1) pH has been stable since the first day I set it up...5 years ago. The nitrites and ammonia have flucuated very little, and the nitrates have always been between 40-60 ppm. The above readings are average for my tank.

2) I do a 25% H2O change every month, and remove the sponge and bio-bag every 2 weeks. I rotate the bag and sponge (one week the sponge, two weeks later the bag, two weeks later the sponge, etc.) When doing a water change I vacuum the gravel, and scrub clean the filter parts (basket, intake valve, motor, walls, etc.)

3) Aquaclear 200 filter, set to high filter normally, when feeding, I turn it down to low (or else it just sucks back up all the food)

4) The temperature is currently 77 degrees F, I've been slowly dropping them from 85 degrees over the course of the last 3 months. Usually a click every week.

5) The only other real problem I've had with this tank was a mass tetra-cide a few months to a year ago...lost about 8 cardnal (sp) tetras in 12 hours...never did figure out why that happened.

I have added 3 corydoras and 3 serpea tetras to the tank, but that was 3 weeks ago, I'm not sure if this tetra was the old one or one of the newer ones.

As an update, it's fins are now ragged and it's pretty bleached of color...not at all vibrant like the others. It won't eat, and still does the laying and gasping thing. Help??

 

[greenmaji]

Do you have one of these?

most will tell you that 20ppm of NO3 is ok.. IMO 10ppm or less is a good goal.. 40-60ppm can cause problems.. NO3 is a poison, some fish species are able to tollerate more of it before having adverse reactions but some cant handle higer consentrations like the ones your tank is experiancing..

I recomend 25% weekly as a minium for water changes for FW tanks.. not only are NO3 consentrations getting higher but DOC's and KH will build up to poor levels/at times enough to be harmfull to your fish in a months ttime (KH if your using tapwater to top off with)..

I also recomend if your tapwaters PH and KH are very close to the peramiters of your tank to do a large (75-98%) water change.. and when I mean very close Im saying that the PH after the water has been airated for 20 min is within .2 points of PH and the same KH reading (normal KH testkits are not accurate enough to give you a range IMO)

If you do not have a KH testkit or your PH and KH are not close enough.. start doing 25% water changes daily untill your NO3 level is down to 10 ppm or less and bump up your normal water changing scedual to 25% a week.. after your first water change If you test 2 hours later and have a 15 ppm+ NO3 reading increase the water change % untill you can achive less then 15ppm NO3..
NO3 is the easiest to test indicator that your water needs a greater % and frequency of water changes.. Im not saying its the best indicator or only bad ellement in the water..

the aquaclear 200 pumps 200 gph (imagine that lol) it will give your tank just bairly 5 cycles per hour.. IMO that is the minimum for a tank that is not overstocked.. IMO your tank is at the upper levels of its ability to house fish.. you might want to consider an upgrade.. like to the 300 or just add another 200..
I also recomened unpluging the filter for the one min. a day that there should be food in the water.. (feed only what the fish can eat in 45-60 seconds and unplug the filter durring this time)
clean the fiter media when the debris in the media slows the filters flow down noticably.. this could be 3 weeks or 4 days it depends on the bio-load of the tank..
monthly cleaning of the filter itself (the houseing and such) is just fine

78 degrees F is a good temperature for tropical fish.. I recomend that you stop dropping the temperature now..

it seems of the fish you have the tetra's are the indicator fish of poor water quality.. in other words they are the most sensitive to poor water quality that you have had in the tank..

I hope this helps..

 

[greenmaji]

how's it going?

 

[Dragonchild85]

Well, here's a (unfortunate) update. When I got home from work, he was still funky and gasping, and would go into convulsions. I euthinized him tonight...he didn't fight being netted at all, and seemed to go quietly.

 

[greenmaji]

well.. I hope you took my above advice to heart.. this should keep situations like this to a very bare miniumum.. well.. I didnt have problems with that kind of maintance schedual..

I did ~75% water changes weekly.. worked like a charm..

chin up.. this can be corrected..

I hope your fish see better days ahead..