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65 Posts
Any help or advice is appreciated. Thank you.
Housing:
- 10 gallon
- 80 degrees
- Filter, yes. Heater, yes. No air stone or air tube.
- Tank mates: two oto catfish.
- I put live plants in his tank two days ago. He had silk ones before but they started to grow a bit of algae and no matter how much I scrubbed them, they still looked dirty. So I went to the store to buy replacement silk plants and ended up buying live plants on a whim.
Food:
- New Life Spectrum
- Usually feed him 3-4 pellets, twice a day, but for the past few weeks, I've been feeding him less often because I thought he was acting strange and I didn't know what to do.
Maintenance:
- 50% water changes every week (although, honestly, sometimes it's 2 weeks)
- I add Nutrafin Aqua Plus to the water
- Two days ago, I replaced the plants in his tank with live plants, so I added Flourish Excel too. Just one time so far. I added 5mL as per the bottle directions.
Water Parameters:
- pH: 7.5
- Ammonia: 0
- Nitrite: < 0.1 mg/L
- Nitrate: 5 mg/L
Symptoms and Treatment:
- Isn't really moving around. Just nestled in the plants.
- I feel like he's been kind of lethargic for a few weeks.
- Yesterday I noticed that it took him quite a bit of effort to get out of the leaves and go get his food. He took his first pellet and then started to sink a bit while he ate it – which I thought was weird –*and then he swam back up for the second pellet… Usually he sort of treads water. I thought it was odd that he let himself float down. Actually, as I'm writing this, he's trying to swim across the top of the tank and sinking down to middle a little bit.
- His fins are a little droopy, but they aren't hard or stiff.
- Colouring seems the same.
- Haven't started treatment yet. Should I do epsom salts? Will the otos be okay in there?
- No history of illness.
- I got him about a year and a half ago.
Housing:
- 10 gallon
- 80 degrees
- Filter, yes. Heater, yes. No air stone or air tube.
- Tank mates: two oto catfish.
- I put live plants in his tank two days ago. He had silk ones before but they started to grow a bit of algae and no matter how much I scrubbed them, they still looked dirty. So I went to the store to buy replacement silk plants and ended up buying live plants on a whim.
Food:
- New Life Spectrum
- Usually feed him 3-4 pellets, twice a day, but for the past few weeks, I've been feeding him less often because I thought he was acting strange and I didn't know what to do.
Maintenance:
- 50% water changes every week (although, honestly, sometimes it's 2 weeks)
- I add Nutrafin Aqua Plus to the water
- Two days ago, I replaced the plants in his tank with live plants, so I added Flourish Excel too. Just one time so far. I added 5mL as per the bottle directions.
Water Parameters:
- pH: 7.5
- Ammonia: 0
- Nitrite: < 0.1 mg/L
- Nitrate: 5 mg/L
Symptoms and Treatment:
- Isn't really moving around. Just nestled in the plants.
- I feel like he's been kind of lethargic for a few weeks.
- Yesterday I noticed that it took him quite a bit of effort to get out of the leaves and go get his food. He took his first pellet and then started to sink a bit while he ate it – which I thought was weird –*and then he swam back up for the second pellet… Usually he sort of treads water. I thought it was odd that he let himself float down. Actually, as I'm writing this, he's trying to swim across the top of the tank and sinking down to middle a little bit.
- His fins are a little droopy, but they aren't hard or stiff.
- Colouring seems the same.
- Haven't started treatment yet. Should I do epsom salts? Will the otos be okay in there?
- No history of illness.
- I got him about a year and a half ago.