My Oto is freaking out

[boco]

Hi everyone,

I have a oto who has been keeping my 55 gallon tank clean of algae for about 3 weeks. He usually hides amongst the plants and is quite timid. Yesterday after the PWC he is swimming like crazy only to pause for a few seconds. Is this normal behaviour? I am thinking he might be stressed and even placed him in a quaranteen tank with some algae thins but he wanted nothing to do with it. Should I be doing something different?

 

[i3k]

When you did the PWC, did you use water conditioner? He might have freaked out during the water change and injured himself.

Test your water just to make sure all parameters are fine and if they are, just give the fish time to calm down. I would put him back into the main tank. Transferring an already stressed fish can make things worse. Don't turn the lights on for a few days.

 

[Shadowraven]

This can often happen if you did not dechlorinate the water before adding it to the tank. Fish will dart about and their gills will pump furiously after the pwc.

It can also happen if the water added is drastically different than the water in the tank. i3k is right, you should have left him in the old tank. Moving him to another tank just adds more stress to the fish. You may also want to try adding some water conditioner directly to the tank to make sure that there are no more problems with it.

 

[boco]

Thanks for the advice. I did add "prime" to the water before hand but this is the first time I have used prime. I have previously used aqueon water conditioner. Maybe this change feels "odd" to the fish. The other fish (mollies , platies, danios and gourami's) all seem OK.