Emergency: Archer fish with swim bladder issues

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ehub88

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Nov 2, 2020
Messages
8
Tank:
85 gallons, but 15 gallons is a filtration system.
It been running for about 2 years
It has a filter and a heater
I keep it at about 80 degrees
I have 5 mono argentus and a green spotted puffer

Maintenance:
I do water changes about once every other week and I take out about 20% and
I vacuum the substrate.

Parameters:
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
pH: 8.4

Feeding
Every night, with one or two fast days in a week
I use Tetra and I don't know the name of my frozen bloodworms.
I feed frozen blood worms and Mysis shrimp and I feed freeze-dried baby shrimp. I also occasionally feed live foods such as flys.

Illness & Symptoms
I've had her for about a year and a half.
I first noticed symptoms a little over two weeks ago.
She can not swim properly, she is stuck at the bottom of the tank either belly up or on her side. She does not want to eat.
I treated her with boiled peas for about 5 days to try and get rid of any compaction, and then I have been treating her with bacterial infection treatment for about a week. I have also been given two doses of antiparasitic medication. Her appearance color-wise has remained the same, as well as her energy levels. She just won't eat and can't swim.

Explain your emergency situation in detail.
She was fine one evening when I went to bed and when I woke up she was at the bottom and unable to swim. There were no previous signs leading up to her being unable to swim. I have googled and tried everything I have found to treat her and nothing is working. Since she refuses to eat and can't swim I am very scared she is going to die soon if I cannot find more treatment for her.
 
Any chance of pictures and video of the fish?
Upload videos to YouTube, then copy & paste the link here.

What does the fish's poop look like?

What sort of filter is on the tank?
How often and how do you clean the filter?

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You should do bigger water changes.

You do water changes for a number of reasons.
1) to reduce nutrients like ammonia, nitrite & nitrate.
2) to dilute disease organisms in the water.
3) to keep the pH, KH and GH stable.
4) to dilute nitric acid produced by fish food and waste breaking down.
5) to dilute stress chemicals (pheromones/ allomones) released by the fish.
6) to dilute un-used plant fertiliser so you don't overdose the fish when you add more.
7) to remove fish waste and other rotting organic matter.

Fish live in a soup of microscopic organisms including bacteria, fungus, viruses, protozoans, worms, flukes and various other things that make your skin crawl. Doing a big water change and gravel cleaning the substrate on a regular basis will dilute these organisms and reduce their numbers in the water, thus making it a safer and healthier environment for the fish.

If you do a 25% water change each week you leave behind 75% of the bad stuff in the water.
If you do a 50% water change each week you leave behind 50% of the bad stuff in the water.
If you do a 75% water change each week you leave behind 25% of the bad stuff in the water.

Fish live in their own waste. Their tank and filter is full of fish poop. The water they breath is filtered through fish poop. Cleaning filters, gravel and doing big regular water changes, removes a lot of this poop and harmful micro-organisms, and makes the environment cleaner and healthier for the fish.

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What to do now?
Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens so the medication will work more effectively on the fish.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.
 
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