why are my fish acting weird ?
my husband bought some feeders (15 small goldfishes) for our 10yr old southamerican cichlid. he ate 4 of them in the first 15 mins. then ate 1-3 a day. after a week there were only 3 lft. he started to look and act funny. his natural color is light gray with black strips, with a light dull pinkish under his mouth and gills, but that only turns pink when he’s mad. but this time it wasn’t a dull pink it was actually red. my cichlid is very aggressive, i seriously think he should have been a guard dog instead of a fish. whenever anyone gets close or walks toward his 60 gallon tank, he’s always trying to attack whoever. this time he was just red, then when he would swim he’d swim irratically. one night he swam so irratically that he seriously jumped out of the tank. thank fully my son heard him, and my husband put him back in the tank. he wouldn’t swim he’d just sit there, then he’d start to float and look like he’s about to do a forward flip but then he’d float on his side after a couple of mins he’d realize and then adjust himself. like he didn’t have control. so i went to a fish store and they said he might have something wrong w/ 1 – swim bladder, or 2 – something about a digestive blockage. so they told me to put some aquarium salt. so i did and also changed the water. now my cichlid seems better he’s actually swimming around but my concern is my algea eater, plecos ever since i put the aquarium salt he’s now starting to act crazy! my husband bought some feeders (15 small goldfishes) for our 10yr old south American cichlid. he ate 4 of them in the first 15 mins. then ate 1 to 3 a day. after a week there were only 3 left. he started to look and act funny. his natural color is light gray with black strips, with a light dull pinkish under his mouth and gills, but that only turns pink when he’s mad. this time it wasn’t a dull pink it was actually red. my cichlid is very aggressive; I seriously think he should have been a guard dog instead of a fish. whenever anyone gets close or walks toward his 60 gallon tank, he’s always trying to attack whoever. this time he was just red, and then when he would swim he’d swim erratically. one night he swam so erratically that he seriously jumped out of the tank. thank fully my son heard him, and my husband put him back in the tank. he wouldn’t swim he’d just sit there, then he’d start to float and look like he’s about to do a forward flip but then he’d float on his side after a couple of mins he’d realize and then adjust himself. it was like he didn’t have control. so I went to a fish store and they said he might have something wrong w/ 1 – swim bladder, or 2 – something about a digestive blockage. so they told me to put some aquarium salt. so I did and also changed the water. now my cichlid seems better he’s actually swimming around but my concern is my algae eater or plecos ever since I put the aquarium salt he’s now starting to act crazy! swimming irratically and he won’t suck the floor of the tank.
Does the aquarium salt affect him? plecos, algea eater??
now my tank is looking quite cloudy too.
swimming irratically and he won’t suck the floor of the tank.
Does the aquarium salt effect him?
now my tank is looking quite cloudy, we just changed the water 2 nights ago. Please help!! thanks!!
Other articles you might like;
- Is These Pellets Healthy + More Qs-?
- Would This Hurt The Guppy Fry?
- 90g Reef Aquarium Setup Day 5
- Ideas On Fish For Freshwater Community Aquarium?
- Work Experience Melbourne 2011?
I’d recommend shortening this whole thing if you’re interested in good responses. Even the nerdiest fish lovers of all people would get lost and say “I dunno.”
Yes, salt will affect plecos. I’m not sure if he’s the fish you’re referring to as the algae eater, or if there’s another algae eater along with the pleco.
But in addition to the salt, the 15 goldfish will produce a lot of ammonia from their wastes, and so will your cichlid from eating them. If you can, test your tank water to see what the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels are. As the ammonia in the tank increases, a bacterial bloom will occur, and this can make the water cloudy.
BTW, feeder goldfish aren’t a good choice for feeding to other fish. Goldfish have a higher fat content and aren’t very nutritious. And you have the possibility of introducing any diseases the fish have to your own fish by letting them live in the tank. Cichlids are prone to getting hole-in-the-head from poor diets with lots of live feeders as their primary foods. These should be limited to *treats* and the main foods should be a good quality pelleted food, worms, crickets, and/or mealworms.
for one your reapeted the whole thing three times lol i read through it
and second yes remove the pelco and hold him in a second tank until you see your fish is getting better.
remember some feeder fish come with fin rot or swim bladder infections and can be harmful to your fish witch sucks i know
but try and look for discolouration in the feeders or odd swimming behaviour when you first buy them then take thos ones out and hold them in a diffrent tank to see if they die or grow ich,fin or tail rot and show symptoms of finbladder infection if they do dont feed them to your fish throw them out!
WHY ???? That’s my main question. Why would you go and feed your prized fish and member of the family feeder goldfish ????
Would you go scoop up road kill off the street and cook it for dinner ??
Cus that’s basically what you did to your fish sorry to say. The feeders sold at even the cleanest pet stores are laden with disease and intestinal parasites which by your fishes actions, I can almost with 100 % certainty say he’s has now. Plus feeder fish have NO nutritional value just a little bit of protein that’s not even noticeable. If you want to give your fish live feeders for variety breed some guppy’s yourself, that’s the only way. Otherwise just feed him different frozen and pellet foods. Every Single keeper of Cichlids will tell you the same, that is if they know as much as I do lol.
They have special medicines at the fish store for these parasites and salt isn’t going to do a darn thing for it. F.Y.I. for you too, your local fish store employee is a moron, he/she doesn’t care about your problem or is retarded if you told him this same story and he told you just add salt. Not gonna do a darn thing for a bacteria or internal parasite. Read this link and see if you can’t figure out what he has as far as illnesses with visible signs, if none of these fit the bill its internal. http://badmanstropicalfish.com/fish_palace/tropicalfish_disease_identification.html
As far as the salt and the Pleco, Plecos are very sensitive to both salt and mediations. Any salt added to fish tanks, especially those with plecos in them needs to be dissolved with a bucket of tank water and added over the course of a day not all at once. Just let him adjust to the shock of the salt you just put him threw and he should settle down. A high salt Envoirment will kill him over time though.
As far as the cloudiness, if your tank has been cycled fro some time and you do 30 % of the volume of the tank water change weekly you must be overfeeding. Or somehow caused the tank to go threw a mini-cycle by cleaning too much or tanking out too much water.
Its hard to say really because SO many mistakes can be made when your not as informed as you should be. Good Luck with your treatment though and feel free to E-mail me if you have any other questions or need anything clarified.
Plecos don’t tolerate the salt, you need to take it out of there temporarily.
That’s why you’re not supposed to feed live fish to your fish. If they are suffering from, or carrying a disease, your fish will get it. Just not a good idea.
But please get the pleco out of the salt water. I had two die before I learned I was killing them by adding salt into the tank.
Fish can carry lots of bacteria and whatever so yeah that could be why. Also he might have indigestion after eating those fish so quickly!