I think my fish is dying

Mark27 · 01-11-2007, 11:46 PM

I have a fish sitting on the bottom breathing heavy and not moving to much. Is it dying? Should I remove him so as not to hurt the other fish? I have never had a fish just sit there and breath and not move much, especially this one, it is frantic fish as my wife calls it. help

Tommy Gun · 01-12-2007, 12:13 AM

What type of fish is this that you are having problems with?

Is it in the tank with the algea bloom issue?

I might think about moving it to a hospital/quarantine tank just to be on the safe side. If you do, keep the lights off on it and make sure the water is near perfect.

This could be a lot of things I guess and I would not want to speculate without more information, and even then I would not want to make a pure guess, educated or not. What are your water parameters on this tank (ammonia, nitrites, nitrates)?

Has anything changed recently before the symptoms appeared?

The best place to start is to look into the water quality and do a water change, even if the tests say the tank is fine, there may be an issue that you do not have a test for. This sounds a bit like ammonia or nitrate poisoning, but like I said, I cant be sure of that.

Mark27 · 01-12-2007, 09:46 PM

Its a cichlid, it is in the same green tank. I have read some info and it sounds as if it has fin rot. I am going to do a water change and carbon filter change to see if that helps. I may do the complete darkness thing if you don't think it would hurt the fish. I can do a water test and tell you where they are. Also remember i just moved the tank the weekend before christmas, that when this all started.

mark

Loman · 01-12-2007, 10:16 PM

Mark,
Fin rot is almost always associated with poor water quality. In the other thread you said the water parameters looked (although you did not specify them which always causes my to question a bit). If Ammonia and Nitrites are both 0 and Nitrates say 30 or less fin rot does not seem all that likely. Do you see a noticeable reduction in the fin tissue and fraying on the edges? I realize something is going on in the tank right now because of the white and now green bloom but I would expect some level of ammonia or nitrite to cause fin rot. As for the blackout the problem I see there is if this fish is near death then when you blackout the tank if it dies it will remain in the tank for something like 3 days decaying and creating ammonia etc. I think a blackout would be worth trying but if possible I would pull this fish into a QT tank.

Tommy Gun · 01-12-2007, 10:29 PM

I agree with loman and would also take this sick fish out before doing a blackout so that you can watch it.

To go along with Loman's thoughts, I would also add that if you keep your fish at a temp that is too low for a long time, fin rot can also occur. This could have come about from your recent move since the fish were probrably in an unheated bucket or something during the operation. However, I still think that your algae problem is due in large part to less than ideal water conditions and so that would explain the fin rot, if that is even the true case here. I am willing to bet that you either stirred up too much detrius out of the substrate, if it is gravel, which put alot of nutrients into the water all at one time. These nutrients probraly caused or at least benifit the algae bloom, and much more than it benifits they fish.

Mark27 · 01-12-2007, 10:33 PM

What if I dont have a QT tank? Will just a bucket do with some of the tank water? How can I improvise without spending a lot of money? I don't want to lose the fish but on the other hand I did not spend that much on it either. I hope that doesn't sound bad. I would rather sacrifice one fish for the health of others. As I said before if it would help I could take a sample, I have a 5 in 1 test strip that I am using. Would that give you more info?

Mark

Mark27 · 01-12-2007, 10:47 PM

tommy gun you wrote: I am willing to bet that you either stirred up too much detrius out of the substrate, if it is gravel, which put alot of nutrients into the water all at one time. These nutrients probraly caused or at least benifit the algae bloom, and much more than it benifits they fish. I wish I knew how you inserted mine like you did.
This pretty much hits the nail on the head. I had to move the tank over to the new house in the back of the truck. It was all stirred up after that. I did not want to clean it because I did that before and it killed all my fish. It was like having a brand new tank. So I let it settle for a short time and added water and fish back into it. It was fine for a short time. then boom. ALGEE. What do you think is going on? Normal events from moving a tank that will go away, or am i doing something wrong?

Mark

BJP · 01-13-2007, 07:43 AM

Quote:

What if I dont have a QT tank? Will just a bucket do with some of the tank water? How can I improvise without spending a lot of money?

Bucket, small sponge filter and a small heater, air pump to power the sponge filter.

Not as good as a glass aquarium for direct observation but it'll work in a pinch.

Tommy Gun · 01-13-2007, 09:53 AM

Quote:

I wish I knew how you inserted mine like you did.

When you are replying, you can copy and paste a sentance to your reply, highlight it and press the wrap[quote]tags button. Its the one that looks like a text bubble from a cartoon.

Quote:

I did not want to clean it because I did that before and it killed all my fish. It was like having a brand new tank

I think considering that you just moved your fish and put them under a lot of stress, you probrably did the right thing to stop messing around and get the fish setttled back in.

How thick is the layer of gravel you have in your tank? When I did a recent switch from gravel to sand substrates, I realized just how much gunk was getting trapped by my gravel. My substrate was entirely too thick but even though I religously vaccumed it out, the detrius still accumulated over the year or so that I had that tank running.

I found that with gravel, less is more in a lot of ways. I realize that this is a large place for bacteria to grow and inhabit as well, so I think that a happy medium needs to be acheived here. So long as the gravel is not overly thick so that it can accumulate all sorts of detrius, but is also in a significant enough quantitiy for your bacteria, your tank will prosper better in the long run as compared to having one extreme or another.

Quote:

It was fine for a short time. then boom. ALGEE. What do you think is going on?

I think that all that detrius and wastes that were kicked up into the water column are giving the algae bloom enough food to thrive on and this is the true problem. Doing water changes is going to help in two ways...it will take out some of that algae as well as take out some of those nutrients. The best thing to do in my opinion is to vaccum out your substrate really well with each water change. I would do one every three days or so and remove about 1/3 of the water while vaccuming the gravel.

You cannot remove the bacteria simply by vaccuming out the gravel, so do not worry about that. you do not want to take the gravel out and rinse it off because that would kill off or reduce the bacteria though. However, if you have a lot of gravel, then it may benifit you to take some of it out so that it is easier to manage in the future.

BJP has a good idea for the q-tank. It would certainly not be too expensive in the future for you to pick up a 10 gallon tank though and in fact, could save you a lot of time and money later on. I buy 10 gallon 'kit' tanks from Walmart for about 30 dollars which come with every thing you need minus substrate and decor.

Mark27 · 01-13-2007, 03:30 PM

GOOD NEWS,

The fish that I thought was dying is swimming around again. The fins all look bad but better than the other day. I did a water change and changed the carbon filters last night and this morning the one is swimming around the tank. So for now I will continue to change the water about every three days until the green goes away or using my best judgement to stop doing it so often.

Quote:

How thick is the layer of gravel you have in your tank?

Not very I thought that I may need more, maybe not. The fish move it around and you can see the bottom of the tank.

mark