libertybelle
Aquarium Advice Addict
Hey guys, my turn for a question!
So I just noticed one of my white skirt teras (glo tetras, technically) has gotten very skinny and is being bullied a bit by the other skirts. Now these fish were not all the same size when I bought them (a little over 2 months ago approx.) and without noticing I bought this fish which was quite a bit smaller than the others already. But until the last week or two that hasn’t been a problem. There was a few days of pecking order nipping on addition to qt and the again moving to their current tank but no major aggression. Now the bullying seems to have gotten bad enough that it doesn’t come out to eat quite so readily. Its not a constant thing but it is more than it used to be. I’ve tried occasionally to intentionally overfeed right before a water change and it will eat eventually. I hadn’t noticed how skinny it had gotten because I have thick plants and I guess it was usually hiding.
Haven’t seen any aggression from the barbs, despite their smaller school size.
Conventional wisdom for this kind of aggression is adding to the school size but I’m unsure if that will make things worse in a relatively small space (29g.) This tank will likely be upgraded but not for a while so I don’t want to push things. That said, I have decent lights, a ton of plants and it’s overfiltered so parameters are quite stable. I do 50% water changes weekly and nitrates stay fairly low (5-15 if I delay water changes a bit.). No ammonia or nitrites.
Additionally I wanted to ask, is there any value in using something like ParaGuard in case the skinniness is not just an effect of being bullied away from food and is some kind of parasite? There are no external signs of parasites that I can see. Haven’t seen any white stringy poop, etc. But I’m unsure if the flattened head is a symptom that should be raising red flags for me or if it’s effect of malnutrition.
Additional tank details are in my profile.
So there’s a couple unknowns here. Is it skinny because it’s ill and that’s making it a target (in which case medication of some kind might help.)
Or is it skinny because it was already the runt and the others are outpacing its growth due to food competition. In which case adding to the school some similarly sized fish and/or overfeeding a bit before water changes might help more.
It’s hard to get a pic due to aforementioned hiding but here’s the best I could manage. I welcome your thoughts!
So I just noticed one of my white skirt teras (glo tetras, technically) has gotten very skinny and is being bullied a bit by the other skirts. Now these fish were not all the same size when I bought them (a little over 2 months ago approx.) and without noticing I bought this fish which was quite a bit smaller than the others already. But until the last week or two that hasn’t been a problem. There was a few days of pecking order nipping on addition to qt and the again moving to their current tank but no major aggression. Now the bullying seems to have gotten bad enough that it doesn’t come out to eat quite so readily. Its not a constant thing but it is more than it used to be. I’ve tried occasionally to intentionally overfeed right before a water change and it will eat eventually. I hadn’t noticed how skinny it had gotten because I have thick plants and I guess it was usually hiding.
Haven’t seen any aggression from the barbs, despite their smaller school size.
Conventional wisdom for this kind of aggression is adding to the school size but I’m unsure if that will make things worse in a relatively small space (29g.) This tank will likely be upgraded but not for a while so I don’t want to push things. That said, I have decent lights, a ton of plants and it’s overfiltered so parameters are quite stable. I do 50% water changes weekly and nitrates stay fairly low (5-15 if I delay water changes a bit.). No ammonia or nitrites.
Additionally I wanted to ask, is there any value in using something like ParaGuard in case the skinniness is not just an effect of being bullied away from food and is some kind of parasite? There are no external signs of parasites that I can see. Haven’t seen any white stringy poop, etc. But I’m unsure if the flattened head is a symptom that should be raising red flags for me or if it’s effect of malnutrition.
Additional tank details are in my profile.
So there’s a couple unknowns here. Is it skinny because it’s ill and that’s making it a target (in which case medication of some kind might help.)
Or is it skinny because it was already the runt and the others are outpacing its growth due to food competition. In which case adding to the school some similarly sized fish and/or overfeeding a bit before water changes might help more.
It’s hard to get a pic due to aforementioned hiding but here’s the best I could manage. I welcome your thoughts!