He is in your new 10g, correct? I know on your getting started thread you posted some pics and some of the décor may have caused the issue with the scrape. Its possible he was stuck somewhere for awhile and is very stressed from the incident. Does he have any other symptoms such as red streaking/veining, lifted scales, swelling, bulging eyes, anything else unusual beyond the distressing behavior?
Have you tested your parameters? How do they look? A water change would be my first suggestion especially if there is any amount of toxins.
When I posted that I think he was in his final moments and their was nothing I could do for him.
He's passed away now.
I thought it was a scrape but in fact it was just a small flake of food that was stuck to him that made it look like a cut at first glance.
I tested the water and everything was like it was but the ammonia had gone up slightly.
The parameters were:
pH-8.2
Ammonia-1 ppm
Nitrite-0 ppm
Nitrate- 0 ppm
I know the ammonia is high but I was trying to keep it around .50-.75 for at least a day or two so because I was still in the process of a fish-in cylce and so that I wouldn't starve the bacteria.
I think that's where I F'd up. Instead of keeping the ammonia slightly high I should of changed it at the first sign of ammonia. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know.
Was that right of me?
I'm pretty new to the hobby. Pontus went through a lot of trauma since I got him. I first got him and had him in a little 3 gallon tank. I didn't know how to properly take care of him because I didn't know any better until I noticed he was sick. So I did some research on what could have caused him to be sick and that's how I discovered the hobby of fishkeeping. Once I bought a test kit I found out that his ammonia was at a whopping 6.0 ppm, I instantly became a very worried parent!
Throughout his life with me he went through:
-High ammonia
-Ammonia burns
-A huge cut on his side from an improper decoration in his tank
-Huge amounts of stress from all the water conditions
-High water temperature
Through all of that I finally get him in a good sized tank and the cleanest water that I could possibly manage. And after all that he was finally healthy. Finally happy. And then he just gives up.
All of yesterday and last night he was a perfectly normal, happy little guy. And this morning, a little fishy with barely any hope left for him...
I don't know what went wrong. I understand that maybe it was the slight ammonia increase but I don't think that would kill him overnight. I mean, he's gone through so much worse that just a tiny increase in ammonia. He was a tough SOB!
I felt very discouraged. I was about to just dump all the water out and say screw it and just sell all of my aquarium stuff.
But I looked at it and realized that this whole fiasco is just a stepping stone in the right direction. It's going to help me be stronger and more knowledgeable in the future and make me a better aquirist.
With all of that said,
R.I.P Pontus
You fought a long hard battle.
