sick parrot fish

[littlebird]

Hello,

I read the sticky and followed some links about disease, but I'm still not sure what I should do.

We have a 35 gallon tank I think, I don't know all our technical info, since that is more my husband's department, but I know we tend to have high ph (like 8 I think). For the ammonia and stuff my husband said it probably did just get pretty high (he hadn't changed water in a month or more). So he just changed it yesterday.

The situation is this: Our orange parrot fish is acting strange. He/she mostly is laying on the bottom of the tank. He gets up and swims around a bit, and then lays back down like he is tired it seems. He eats. We feed flakes and dried shrimp for a treat. I really like this fish (I didn't know about the controversy about them when we got him) he has so much personality and seems pretty intelligent so I'd really like to help him if I can. I read that these fish can be first indicators of high nitrites, so maybe that was the problem, but if so how long would it take for the fish to go back to normal? If it is a bacterial infection what could it be and what should we do? We have a few other fish, a convict, algae fish, this little shark thing, another I can't think of what it's called but is similar looking to the convict, and we recently added an algae eating fish I can never remember how it's name goes- d---icus something! Sorry I don't know more!

Thank you!

Leslie

 

[JWright]

What are your nitrite levels? (While we're at it, your ammonia and nitrate levels would be helpful too).

That's a pretty general description of an illness, and pretty hard to diagnose...

Your tank might be a little overstocked, depending on how big the rest of the fish are, and that can contribute to illness.

Do you see any aggression amongst the fish? Convicts can be pretty nasty to their tank-mates...

 

[littlebird]

Thanks for the reply. I don't think we're overstocked, most of the fish are pretty small I think (2-3 inches). The parrot is the biggest. I don't see an aggression problem. The convict is a newer fish so he's lower in the pecking order. The other fish is a gaurami and they do sort of chase each other sometimes. But, now the gaurami is hanging out above a bubbler near the surface and I think he also may be sick. The parrot fish is also sort of rubbing himself on things. I remember reading something about that today, too.

My husband is doing another water change now. He says he has some sticks for checking the levels and he may do that, too.

Thanks,
Leslie

 

[littlebird]

Ok, we did the test. The sticks are old (expired last year), but this is what we got:

Nitrate- between 80 and 200

Nitrite- came a brown color and doesn't match the samples very well. They show shades of pink and it doesn't look pink

hardness- 200ppm

alkalinity- 80

ph- 7.2

 

[MissFishy]

Nitrates are through the roof. I would continue doing at least 50% water changes every 12 hrs or so. That would also take care of any nitrite problems you are having. Make sure you are conditioning the water as you put it in the tank with a good water conditioner that removes heavy metals, chlorine and chloramine. Condition any water that you put in there. I don't know much about those types of fish, but you may want to salt your water as well. Are the fish eating? Are there any sort of white spots/dark spots on their bodies or fins? Do their gills look healthy? Anything hanging out of their gills? Is their fish poop long white and stringy? Or normal?

 

[JWright]

Sounds like your test strips are probably going bad (turning brown like that).

Strips are very unreliable to begin with, and they don't age well.

If you can, pickup a basic freshwater test kit that uses drops of liquid into a test tube. Usually $15-$20, and it will include tests for everything you need. Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate are the big three things to check.

"Flashing" (rubbing against rocks or tank decorations) can be a sign of illness, but healthy fish do it as well. It's hard to diagnose a problem as general as a "lethargic fish", but it sounds to me like it's just stressed. The high nitrate levels indicate a fair amount of built-up waste in the tank, so that could be contributing to it.

I'm with MissFishy, 30-40% water changes, twice a day, over the next day or two to get the nitrate levels down to a reasonable point (shoot for under 40 ppm). Be sure you condition your water with some sort of dechlor, and try to get the temperature roughly the same.

Salt isn't going to help much in this case, unless we can identify what's going on. Are there any visible marks whatsoever? Look closely at the gill and see if they look any different from normal. Without any other symptoms, there's no way to know what to treat for.

Keep up the water changes, get that water tested, and keep the faith.

~JW