Unbalanced swimming

[modealings]

Please complete this questionnaire if your fish are sick (copy and paste). The more details you can provide, the better we are able to diagnose and help you treat your sick fish.

DISEASE QUESTIONNAIRE


Problem

1. Please explain the problems with your fish. When did you notice the problems and did anything unusual happen that you think started them?

Hey all - I have had this red melon pair now for 6 months from Uncle Sam's. Always very healthy and active. (Still young so no success with breeding yet.) I have recently been keeping them just in tap water (TDS ~400) as I have been waiting for them to practice breeding before lowering with RO. Well a few days ago I thought I would try to entice some breeding behavior with RO, so I lowered the TDS to 120 over the course of 2 days and two 75% water changes. I then had issues with my RO system so just went back to tap water a day later. I then noticed about 24 hours ago that the female can no longer maintain her balance. She mainly stays nose down, but often tips to a side before she rights herself. She doesn't appear dark, nor are her fins clamped. Just seems like a balance issue.

My best guess is constipation/bloat. However it has not responded to up to 3T/10gal of epsom salts over the past 24 hrs nor does the abdomen look swollen. My next best guess would be a bacterial infection of either the GI tract or swim bladder - as is why I'm hesitant to raise the temperature. My final thought is I threw off some equilibrium changing the TDS too rapidly. Of note, the male is doing well as you can see in the video and another pair next door got the same RO change with no difficulties.


2. Symptoms (i.e. turning dark, excess slime, not eating, clamped fins, flashing, darting, clamped gills, white/yellow/green poop, hiding, headstanding or tailstanding, white on tips of fins, rotting or fungus, blisters/white zits on fish, bloated, cloudy eyes, wounds).

See the video below. Simply can't maintain balance. Not dark. No clamped fins.

3. What medications/ treatments have you already tried and what were the results. Include dosage and duration of treatment.

Epsom salts up to 3T/10gal over the past 12 hours. No noticeable difference.


Tank/Water

4. Tank size and ages, numbers and sizes of fish.

29 gal. 1 pair.

5. Water change regime (What percentage and how often).

75% daily with aged tap or RO water as indicated above. Temp in aging barrel is lower, in the 70's.

6. How long has tank been running? Is it bare bottom? If you have substrate, what type and how deep is it?

I've switched tank sizes recently but the sponge has been running for 6 months. Bare bottom.

7. Do you age your water? If you do for how long and what is the ph swing.

Age for 12-24hrs. PH swing 0.5 or so.

8. Parameters and water source;

Note: Water Parameters are important in diagnosing problems within a tank. If you don't own test kits for the following information, you can purchase them, test your parameters and post this info as soon as possible.

So I no longer test my ammonia/nitrite/nitrate given this is BB with 75% daily WC's and I know I don't have ammonia in the tap.

- temp ___83__

- ph __7.0___

- ammonia reading ____

- nitrite reading ____

- nitrate reading ____

What type of water or combinations of water sources do you use? If it is an RO/tap/well water mix, please list percentages in the mix.

- well water ____

- municipal water __100%__

- RO water __** See above for description of recent change.__


9. Any new fish, plants or inverts added recently.

New fish added to the fish room 4 months ago. Quarantined with no issues.

10. Please tell us what you feed your fish and how often. This can be critical information for solving the problem so be as specific as you can.

Al's FDBW, BH mix 1-2x daily.


11. Include any pictures or videos you have which shows the symptoms. If you can't add them to this post, please provide a link to them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC1Gx_3nXRk

[brewmaster15]

Swim Bladder infection comes to mind if it hasn't responded to epsom. I think you should consider an antibiotic like Kanamycin or maracyn 2 ( minocycline).

al

[modealings]

Thanks a lot Al. I'll give it a shot. Any experience with Kanaplex? Seems to be the most available but I've just read that it may be mainly filler vs actual kanamycin.

[brewmaster15]

Thanks a lot Al. I'll give it a shot. Any experience with Kanaplex? Seems to be the most available but I've just read that it may be mainly filler vs actual kanamycin.

I have not used it, but you are correct, you pay alot but get very little as its not pure. I would honestly seek the pure stuff. Try Jehmco.com or angelsplus.com Its not cheap , but its pure.


al

[modealings]

Just wanted to close the loop on this. I went with a treatment of Maracyn 2 given it was much cheaper. After 5 days of treatments, the fish started looking much better and has now been upright for over a week. Even showing some signs of laying eggs again!

Thank you Al for the advice. Much appreciated.