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Persistent intermittent floating

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sbd sick fish
614 views 2 replies 2 participants last post by  Phineastoo 
#1 ·
Alright, I'm starting to think my 5gal tank is cursed :/

So after the untimely death of my Petco baby from unknown causes (I *think* she got caught in the filter after it was baffled), I happened to pick up a new boy at Petsmart, because he was pretty and my tank was empty.

I got him roughly in March, had him for a while in a lightly planted 5gal (anubias/java fern) with a sponge filter and a single ghost shrimp tank mate, and he was fine. Earlier this month (May) I noticed he seemed to have trouble swimming down in the tank, I took it for swim bladder disease, and treated him for constipation.

It is now a month in, and he's still floating.

He generally wedges himself into the corner to stay upright, but most of the time he floats on his side. He has stress stripes, he's tired from working so hard to get around, and the floating seems to be intermittent.

After the first treatment with fasting/pea, he seemed to get better for a couple of days, and then he was floating again without even being fed. He got another fasting/pea treatment, with no result. He got an epsom salt bath, no result. I started a daphnia culture and fed him only daphnia for a few days, got better and then bloated again.

He's been floating straight now for about two weeks, I've only been feeding him a few pieces of pre-moistened food every other day (the same food he ate for the first month or so that I had him before all of this started) and alternating with a few tiny pieces of pea. I didn't have much hope, it seems to be an acute onset and ongoing problem for him.

And then today, something weird happened. Yesterday was a pea day, he got a few very small pieces of pea, and then I left him overnight, but when I happened to look in the tank this morning around 7am before work, he was swimming normally! Hovering about an inch and a half down from the surface, no struggling to stay down, seemingly no problems at all, he fluttered around a little bit and then stayed right where he was! I thought oh my god FINALLY!

But when I came home at lunch, he was floating again. Only 5 hours later.

I don't really know what to do anymore. He's okay and then he's not okay, and during stretches of time where nothing has changed. The water is a constant 80 degrees, I just changed it last night and added a little salinity (I thought maybe this had helped but apparently not), so the tank is clean.

Someone please help.
 
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#3 ·
Feeding a blanched pea is general treatment for constipation, which is the usual cause of swim bladder disorder. Some people do a weekly pea, to prevent constipation to begin with. It scrubs out the bowel since it's just fiber. Live daphnia is essentially the same thing -- their exoskeletons are indigestible, thus same as fiber, helps keep them regular AND it's live food.

Pea, daphnia, moistened pellets, none of it seems to make a difference, it's almost like he spontaneously gets better and then worse again. I thought maybe he was just predisposed to it, but he was fine for a month before this started, and his cup at petsmart was FILTHY so I figure if it didn't happen to him there, then something else is going on.
 
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