Elderly GSP lethargy and swimming issues
Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2025 2:16 pm
Hi all,
I noticed my 15 year old GSP struggling to swim and being lethargic a couple of nights ago. Usually she swims to the front of the tank immediately when I get home from work or walk toward the tank or where I store the fish food, but she was hanging back behind some plants where she’ll often rest. When she eventually came out, she was struggling to swim and swimming in circles and went back behind the plants pretty quickly.
I did a small water change even though everything was testing normally and added a little more marine salt. That seemed to perk her up a bit (she generally gets pretty excited for water changes) but I was pretty sure she was going to pass yesterday. I didn’t really think it was worth it to intervene given her age and figured I would think about euthanizing if it dragged on and it seemed like she was suffering. Then this morning, she’s still struggling to swim normally and a little dull in color but is much more active and ate pretty much as usual.
Still not really sure whether it’s worth trying anything beyond just keeping the water in the tank in a good spot. If it’s her time, I wonder if it’s best to leave her in a familiar environment and just keep an eye on her. The other fish in the tank won’t bother her. But with her slight improvement today, now I’m wondering if there is something more I should try.
For some additional context, she has a permanent injury from jumping tank around 5 years ago (she’s VERY food motivated and a kid feeding her took too long to drop the food in so she jumped for it). We got her back in the tank immediately, but she’s had a slight but noticeable curve to her spine ever since. It makes her a little less graceful of a swimmer, but she’s otherwise been eating and behaving totally normally since then and it didn’t seem to impact her QOL or ability to murder every pest snail in the tank (although her murder rate did start to slow down in the past year). Given the injury, she sometimes looks a little awkward with certain swimming maneuvers but definitely nothing like her current condition where it seems like some other swim bladder or maybe just neurological/old age issue might be at play. Don’t see any evidence of infection or other disease.
ph- 7.8
ammonia- 0
nitrite- 0
nitrate- 5
specific gravity- 1.005
80F
50 gal heavily planted community tank initially set up 15 years ago with currently the 1 GSP, 4 corys, 4 columbian tetras, 10 neon tetras, ~20 neo shrimps, a couple of nerites, and pest snails.
I feed the tank a small amount pretty much daily, and the GSP eats some flakes and dried food but mostly eats snails. Water change 50% every other week with prime and instant ocean salt. A few days ago I trimmed and pulled some plants that were getting pretty overgrown before doing my routine water change. No other recent changes.
Respectfully, at this time I am not looking for advice or commentary telling me to change this community set up. I’m aware it’s not ideal and that GSPs are not freshwater fish. I inherited the tank from my parents a few months ago, who were told that she was a SAP when they purchased her from the LFS ~15 years ago (I was a child at the time). I only recently discovered that she was not a SAP when I was doing some research after inheriting the tank and realized she didn’t look like the SAP pictures. This GSP has lived in low salinity her entire life. Many of the other fish in the tank have also been there for several years—all the colombians and several of the neons are pretty much at their life expectancy as well. One of the corys even hatched in the tank. So the tank seems to be doing alright all things considered. I’m not really inclined to start making dramatic changes especially given the GSP’s age, and my other freshwater tank doesn’t have room to relocate the other fish in this tank.
Other than that, would appreciate any advice or recommendations. Want the old girl to have a peaceful end of life if it’s her time!
I noticed my 15 year old GSP struggling to swim and being lethargic a couple of nights ago. Usually she swims to the front of the tank immediately when I get home from work or walk toward the tank or where I store the fish food, but she was hanging back behind some plants where she’ll often rest. When she eventually came out, she was struggling to swim and swimming in circles and went back behind the plants pretty quickly.
I did a small water change even though everything was testing normally and added a little more marine salt. That seemed to perk her up a bit (she generally gets pretty excited for water changes) but I was pretty sure she was going to pass yesterday. I didn’t really think it was worth it to intervene given her age and figured I would think about euthanizing if it dragged on and it seemed like she was suffering. Then this morning, she’s still struggling to swim normally and a little dull in color but is much more active and ate pretty much as usual.
Still not really sure whether it’s worth trying anything beyond just keeping the water in the tank in a good spot. If it’s her time, I wonder if it’s best to leave her in a familiar environment and just keep an eye on her. The other fish in the tank won’t bother her. But with her slight improvement today, now I’m wondering if there is something more I should try.
For some additional context, she has a permanent injury from jumping tank around 5 years ago (she’s VERY food motivated and a kid feeding her took too long to drop the food in so she jumped for it). We got her back in the tank immediately, but she’s had a slight but noticeable curve to her spine ever since. It makes her a little less graceful of a swimmer, but she’s otherwise been eating and behaving totally normally since then and it didn’t seem to impact her QOL or ability to murder every pest snail in the tank (although her murder rate did start to slow down in the past year). Given the injury, she sometimes looks a little awkward with certain swimming maneuvers but definitely nothing like her current condition where it seems like some other swim bladder or maybe just neurological/old age issue might be at play. Don’t see any evidence of infection or other disease.
ph- 7.8
ammonia- 0
nitrite- 0
nitrate- 5
specific gravity- 1.005
80F
50 gal heavily planted community tank initially set up 15 years ago with currently the 1 GSP, 4 corys, 4 columbian tetras, 10 neon tetras, ~20 neo shrimps, a couple of nerites, and pest snails.
I feed the tank a small amount pretty much daily, and the GSP eats some flakes and dried food but mostly eats snails. Water change 50% every other week with prime and instant ocean salt. A few days ago I trimmed and pulled some plants that were getting pretty overgrown before doing my routine water change. No other recent changes.
Respectfully, at this time I am not looking for advice or commentary telling me to change this community set up. I’m aware it’s not ideal and that GSPs are not freshwater fish. I inherited the tank from my parents a few months ago, who were told that she was a SAP when they purchased her from the LFS ~15 years ago (I was a child at the time). I only recently discovered that she was not a SAP when I was doing some research after inheriting the tank and realized she didn’t look like the SAP pictures. This GSP has lived in low salinity her entire life. Many of the other fish in the tank have also been there for several years—all the colombians and several of the neons are pretty much at their life expectancy as well. One of the corys even hatched in the tank. So the tank seems to be doing alright all things considered. I’m not really inclined to start making dramatic changes especially given the GSP’s age, and my other freshwater tank doesn’t have room to relocate the other fish in this tank.
Other than that, would appreciate any advice or recommendations. Want the old girl to have a peaceful end of life if it’s her time!
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