Weird fish sickness

[Dudley Eirich]

I'm not necessarily seeking advice, but simply relating a recent and ongoing experience with one of my mature cobalt discus. With no outward signs of sickness from this particular discus, I came in one afternoon (fish seemed fine in the morning) to find one of my 2 year old cobalt discus (about 6.5 inches head to tail), which I have raised from the one inch size, laying flat on the bottom of the tank. I thought it was dead so tried to net it, but it darted off, only to lay by flat on the bottom of the tank. I was going to sacrifice the poor fish, but my wife convinced me to wait. I treated with epsom salts in case there was a problem with bloat, but there were really no outward signs of bloat. The next morning I found the fish laying flat on the bottom of the tank, thought it was dead and tried to net it. Again it darted away, only to lay back down on the bottom of the tank. It remained there the whole day and the next. On the fourth day, it began to try to swim around, but couldn't really swim correctly and only managed to do loop-ti-loops whenever it tried to swim. The following day it seemed to be able to swim upright a bit but then would find itself upside down, sideways, etc. It has slowly regained its ability to swim correctly. It has been about two weeks and it seems to swim fairly normally about 80% of the time. It hasn't laid on the bottom of the tank for a couple of days now, and continues to slowly improve. I currently change about 70% of the tank water daily, wipe the walls of the tank every three days and rinse the foam filters once a week. Has anyone ever had a similar experience? What final outcome can I expect. Will that fish ever return to a state of normalcy?

[moik]

possible stray electric current in tank ?

[Dudley Eirich]

possible stray electric current in tank ?

I don't think that would be an issue. I only have one heater in the tank and it is relatively new, less than a year old. It almost seems like a stroke, but I don't know if that is an issue with fish like it is with people. It could be that the fish darted around the tank and it damaged its brain impacting the side of the tank. The fish has continued to improve, but still struggles a bit to remain upright. It also doesn't eat at this point, but I hope that turns around at some point.

[Willie]

Your best bet is to keep on doing what you're doing. Don't medicate without knowing what the problem is. Hope that the fish can recover on its own.

Good luck, Willie

[brewmaster15]

I agree with Willie. It could have been many things that caused this... one quick bolt and a crashing into a tank wall is one. Its also possible the fish has a seizure or stroke. We sometimes forget when we look at our fish that biologically they really aren't that different from us.


al