Sick Swordtail

[MacAnthony]

I have a male swordtail that has been pretty lethargic the last few days. At first it seemed like he was just being shy as he was just hiding under fixtures. Now over the last 2 days, he has just been sitting at the bottom of the tank. His color is poor and seems to be having trouble getting air. He has been moving more tonight and will swim around a bit when I put food in the tank, but his color looks no better and still mostly just sits at the bottom of the tank.

We got him and 3 other swordtails 2 weeks ago and the others look fine, but I'm not sure what could be wrong or what to do with him. Any suggestions? If you need more info, ask and I will try and provide it.

[troy]

How big is the tank and if possible what are the ammonia,nitrite, and nitrate levels.

[MacAnthony]

How big is the tank and if possible what are the ammonia,nitrite, and nitrate levels.

30gal and ammonia, and nitrite test as 0 - I don't have a nitrate test ATM.

[ChurchofAdam]

a partial water change will lower the nitrate levels temporarily, maybe long enough to see a difference but I'm not sure. a better bet is to get a nitrate kit

[troy]

What other fish do you have in the tank and did you clean it about 4 or 5 days ago.

[MacAnthony]

Last water change was last night and it was 20%. Before then, it was over a week ago from now. The friday or saturday before. The change in behavior didn't seem to correspond with that, but maybe.

There are live plants in the aquarium and I would assume they are keeping the nitrate levels down. He is the only fish exhibiting any negative behavior. There are 5 zebra danios, 3 glass catfish and these 4 swordtails with only this one having any issue. There is also decent amount of pond snails from some that snuck in on one of the plants. I've been controlling the population of them with the water changes.

He was perfectly fine and normal for a week, and then one day he disappeared. He would reappear when I would feed the tank and eventually I did find the fixture he was hiding under, but seemed healthy at that time other than the odd behavior. We noticed the poor color (they are reddish orange in color but his color seems washed out) and the sitting on the bottom on Friday. Unfortunately, we were out of town starting friday until sunday evening. I was surprised he made it until this morning.

[troy]

I think it might be nitrates.

[hungryhound]

There are live plants in the aquarium and I would assume they are keeping the nitrate levels down. He is the only fish exhibiting any negative behavior. There are 5 zebra danios, 3 glass catfish and these 4 swordtails with only this one having any issue. There is also decent amount of pond snails from some that snuck in on one of the plants. I've been controlling the population of them with the water changes.


As a general rule I would not simply rely on your plants to keep the nitrates down. Having a nitrate tester is a very helpful and important tool. I know that you are doing water changes, but you are basically flying blind by not being able to tell your nitrates.

[nanaglen2001]

Is there any chance that you make a pic of this poor chap. Maybe its something completely different thats bothering him, worms, parasites in his gills, whatever.

[MacAnthony]

As a general rule I would not simply rely on your plants to keep the nitrates down. Having a nitrate tester is a very helpful and important tool. I know that you are doing water changes, but you are basically flying blind by not being able to tell your nitrates.

I didn't mean to say I don't test them and was just going to go about like that. I was merely stating I don't currently have a testing kit at the moment. I ran out and haven't had time to run to the store to get any. I probably won't be able to test it out until this weekend.

I most certainly can post a pic of the fish when I get home.

[MacAnthony]

I tried getting the pictures, but this was as good as I got. The first one is of the sick one.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1069/543339115_d715b8cf2b_b.jpg

This one is the healthy one for comparison.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1340/543338999_2ac2743315_b.jpg

He seemed a bit more active today, but spend most of the time hiding in the barrel. To get his picture taken, I had to feed them. He came out to get the food and then went back into the barrel.

[MacAnthony]

He seems to be moving around even more now, but still with labored breathing and staying at the bottom of the tank. Since this is a hex tank, that's actually pretty far. I'm debating on putting him in our fry tank. Currently it only has about 5 decent sized zebra danios and some pretty young fry too. I'm not so concerned about the really young fry since we have an almost endless supply of them each time I syphon the tank, but I was wondering how aggressive he might get with the larger fry once he gets healthier. Thoughts?

[MacAnthony]

He didn't make it through the night so little of this matters now :(

Thanks for all the help and suggestions though.

[nanaglen2001]

Too sad he didnt make it. It could have been everything.

Just a last question, how old was that little chap?

[MacAnthony]

We had gotten him and the other swordtails at the LFS almost 3 weeks ago.

[nanaglen2001]

I guess that poor fish has been already sick when you bought him. And all the stress, new water, new environment and so on, finaly did him in.

[MacAnthony]

The others are showing no signs of anything like he went through, but even he looked nice and healthy for almost 2 weeks.

I did move him to the fry tank last night after I posted in here. I'm sure that move didn't help much either, but I wanted to be able to watch him closer (he would hide too much in the large tank) and the other male seemed to be picking on him quite a bit when he did come out. Maybe that was a bad decision. I don't know.

[MacAnthony]

ok, more for academic sake and the sake of my other fish. I finally got another nitrate test last night and ran it and looks like it's around 7-8ish. Less than 10ppm anyway. From what I've read, you want them as low as you can get them but anything lower than around 40 should be safe, right?

[nanaglen2001]

I am of the oppinion that the sickness of your fish had nothing to do with either Nitrit or Nitrate.

If those parametres are lousy, every fish suffers, and then they would hang right under the surface and breath like after a 10000 metres run.

I still think, there was already something wrong with this animal and it came out in your tank.

Very often fish dealers and breeders put lots of antibiotica into their water, so that everything looks great, up to the moment the animal has to cope with all the bacteria in the water of its new home.

You find that very often with guppies.