What's wrong with Larry?

[snailuna]

Hi there! I'm brand new to this community and a brand new fish mommy. We bought our fish this past weekend-- in our community fish tank we have two lyretail guppies, two platys, and one (I think) serpae tetra... named Larry.

Larry was doing great the first day we brought him home. He was happy and eating and lively. Today, Larry is swimming around a bit, but he tends to stay in one place and tread water there (below the filter). Larry has also not eaten in the past two days, which concerns me. Also, his fins are a little tattered which I don't know if it is new or from when we got him a couple days ago at the fish store... I don't know much about fish so I may have just accepted him for who he was.

Other than these symptoms, he seems to be doing OK. I'm just worried he has fin rot or some other illness that I don't know about-- or maybe he was just nipped a lot in the fish store? He's very good around the other fish, not a nipper at all. The rest of my fish are lively and perky. Could he just be stressed?

Here's a picture of my dear Larry. I just got a pH tester and an ammonia tester. The pH is a little high (around 8.5 or so, but I've read online that pH doesn't really matter all too much). I have replaced 15% of the water over the weekend and just again tonight. Ammonia levels are <.02 ppm. I don't know the nitrate or nitrite levels because I don't yet have a tester for that. Temperature has been steady at around 76 degrees (middle of the green section of my thermometer).

Please let me know if there's anything else I can do, or if Larry's fine and I'm just worrying.

Thanks!
--Alicia

 

[Zagz]

Welcome to AA! I am assuming you were not advised about cycling of a tank and the nitrogen cycle? You need to do a larger water change of at least 50%, remember to add dechlorinator. You will have to get a master test kit which contains ammonia, nitrite and nitrate test kits.

Also check these articles out for more useful information.
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/articles/articles/37/1/New-Tank-Syndrome-/Page1.html

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/articles/articles/24/1/Nitrogen-Cycle-/Page1.html

 

[snailuna]

Thanks-- I'll follow these steps and hopefully Larry will get better. Is this a common thing?

 

[krap101]

Ammonia is pretty stressful for fish. I'm not totally sure how you can decide .02ppm of ammonia, since most tests go in like .5ppm intervals? Try to keep ammonia below .5ppm, and eventually the tank will cycle.

He might be "lonely" in the way fish feel loneliness, because tetras school. Also you did just get him, and he is adapting. It is likely the fins were nipped at the store since nothing you have would really nip fins.

 

[Zagz]

New tank syndrome is very common. When I first started keeping fish, I had new tank syndrome because of lack of advice from the lfs. Look into AP`s master FW kit. Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Freshwater Master Test Kit at Big Al's Online

 

[snailuna]

Not sure about the ammonia thing-- I have a meter that lives in the tank and monitors by changing colors (yellow = <.02 ppm; green = .05 ppm; light blue = .2ppm; dark blue = .5 ppm). It's yellow right now. I'm not sure why my reader is different from others (it's made by SeaChem), but that's what it says!

Hopefully the other possibilities you suggested are what's making him seem sad. I don't want to introduce another fish if there's a problem with the tank... so I'll try the stuff from Zagz, and if things get better I might give Larry another friend of his kind to ebb the loneliness.

Thanks for the suggestions!

--Alicia

 

[krap101]

I'm not really sure what you have, but there are some sort of in-tank ammonia "sensor" wheels that I've seen at Petsmart... but I have doubts of their viability. Like Zagz stated, the liquid reagent test kids are the way to go.