gsp acting odd

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Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.

1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.

2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.

3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)

4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.

5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.

We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.

While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.

Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
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stevenlk
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gsp acting odd

Post by stevenlk »

since last night right b'4 i turned off the lights to the aquarium i noticed my 2.5-3'' gsp was skimming the surface.. w/ his nostril/antenna thing on the surface. i dint think anything of it because my puffers do that after i do a small feeding w/ blood worms, but its still doing it now and its cheeks are black and under belly getting dark. i dropped down food and it doesn't even show any interest in blood worms/snails/ghost shrimp...??? someone know whats wrong? i did a water change 4 days ago and he was swimming around fine til last night. BTW other 1-2'' gsp is doing fine ...
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Post by Nick »

What are the water parameters? Sounds like nitrite spike, fish often cruise the surface for more air, and it will effect bigger fish before smaller. We always need your water parameters, in actual numbers, with any post to be able to help your baby.
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manutius
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Post by manutius »

I assume they are in brackish water? One thing it could be is that after feeding fish consume a lot more O2 when digesting food, there is more available O2 at the surface so that could be it. Another factor could be temp of tank, this could affect O2 levels too so check that out, another factor could be constipation too.

What are your water perameters and tank stats?
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