1~What type of fish is afflicted? In addition, please describe what is wrong with the fish to the best of your ability (i.e. cotton like growth, bloated, etc.). My daughter's 5" angelfish stopped eating 2 weeks ago.
She saw him glancing off a plant, but I haven't. From time to time he seems to slightly shudder or shimmy ever so briefly when swimming. I'm not sure that this is a new behavior. We're very concerned.
The fish looks otherwise great, except for a hollow belly. Normal skin, eyes, scales, fins, and swimming. He normally begs and feeds aggressively. Now he approaches and examines food, but doesn't take it. He'll even position himself to "strike" but doesn't follow through. Then he slowly turns away. He was hiding for a couple weeks, but after recent
pwc (see below) his curiosity and fish chasing has returned . . half-way.
In a prior incident the heater went out, temperature dropped, and the angelfish retired to a corner and stopped eating--much like we've been seeing this time. However, in the prior event he immediately returned to normal once the tank reached 80°F.
An aquarist friend recommended increasing temperature to 86°F, which I have very slowly started to do.
2~What are your tank parameters (ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, temp, pH)? Please give exact values.
temperature 83°F
ammonia 0 (Nutrafin drop test)
nitrite 0 (Lifegard test strip)
nitrate ~30
mg/L (Lifegard test strip)
salt 0.7 ppt
pH 7.6 (same as degassed tap water; unchanged by PWCs)
hardness - 48
mg/L as CaCo3
3~ How large is the tank? How long has the tank been set up?
The tank is 46
gal set up 3 years ago. The is an inch or so of coarse plasticized gravel, plastic plants, and one large unidentified live plant.
4~What type of filtration are you using? Please give the name and number (i.e. Fluval 304) and amount of gph if known. Marineland H.O.T Magnum 250gph, plus two airstones. No under gravel filter.
5~How many fish are in the tank? What kinds of fish are they and what are their current sizes?
Three fish: 5" tall angelfish, 6" pleco, and 5" red finned shark.
We also tried to introduce a pair of pearl gouramis, which died after surviving 2 week quarantine and 2-3 weeks in the tank. The last one died 4 days ago (see 12/13/09 post "Gourami crisis").
The Pleco has been very shy for a long time. After the PWCs I find him out and grazing in full light for the first time in a year.
6~When is the last time you did a water change and vacuum the gravel? How often do you do this? How much water do you remove at a time?
A bit of history: The nitrate level was up around 200
mg/L and
TDS (salt) at 1.2 ppt 5 days ago, due to lack of attention. I did twice daily 30%
PWC for 4 days ending yesterday. Water was vaccumed through the gravel each time, so all the gravel is now pretty well clean. Replacement water was supplemented with rock salt .5 g/L, heated to aquarium temperature, and aerated until no chlorine could be measured.
7~How long have you had the fish? If the fish is new, how did you acclimate it/them? 3+ years
8~Have you added anything new to the tank--decor, new dechlorinator, new substrate, etc.? About 6 weeks ago we added an unidentified live plant (large
Anubias?). About 5 weeks ago we added 4" pieces of boiled willow and red oak for the Pleco. These were removed 1 week ago as a general precaution.
9~What kind of food have you been feeding your fish, have you changed their diet recently?
TetraMin tropical flakes. After a long hiatus we started frozen brine shrimp 1-2 times/week beginning 1 month ago. I tried a new can of the same brand in case the old had gone bad, to no effect. A year ago we had blackworms and he ate them with gusto. Yesterday I tried blackworms; the angelfish struck at (ate?) two before losing interest. He barely looked at them today.
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