Synodontis angelicus acting strange?? Maybe?? lol

[MrSomethingFishy]

Ok, I dont know if I am being paranoid or if my fish is sick. I jus got a syno from my lfs. I paid almost 60 bucks for it and I think it may be sick or dying. I brought it home from the lfs and it was on the verge of death, it was at the top of the bag gasping for air. I took him out and he seemed to get better within a half hour or so. I think they had jus arrived at the shop, so the stress of being back in a bag so soon was what happened. He seemed fine, swimming around when the lights were out, and taking food(not flake or the pellets but frozen bloodworms and brine shrimp). So I was confident that he would be fine. I have noticed that he seems to be "gasping" for air again. He doesnt swim around very much at all. But he isnt "noticeably" dying or anything, just the gasping. He is still eating, does swim around, but doesnt act the way I thought it would. I have kept 4 different species of synodontis, and I dont know if it is just me(lol, this specific synodontis angelicus) but angelicus seems to be the most shy and lazy out of the 4. Is this jus the nature of this species?? or is my syno dying or sick?? It may be that this synodontis is not used to its enviroment or maybe it is jus being the way that they are. I dont know. VERY stressful when he cost so much and I dont know if he is ok or not. Please, ANYBODY with experience or knowledge of this species, PLEASE HELP OR TRY TO CALM ME DOWN. LOL

 

[MrSomethingFishy]

OK. So yet again, I had to learn the hard way. My synodontis angelicus did not die or anything, but almost. It did not seem to get used to my aquarium and seemed to be getting worse. I stated earlier how much I paid for it, so I brought it back to my lfs with a water sample. After explaining how the fish was acting and the `symptoms`i noticed, the manager INSISTED that it HAD to be MY water quality that made the fish act like that. I knew they were gonna try to put it on me, thats why I had the water sample in my pocket. After a loooooong wait, they came to me and said `your water is perfect, you could drink it`. Well, it wasnt the manager that insisted that it was my fault, but another employee that I know very well. After a couple more mins the manager finally came over and said I could get a new fish, but only this one time. I get where they are coming from, it its a 50 dollar fish, but do they not see where I was coming from. I bought the fish, and gave it the BEST possible living conditions and by no fault of mine the fish was noticeably sick and dying. Even after I purchased this fish and returned it for health reasons, they put the returned fish right back in with the others!! So now someone lese is going to have to go through what I did, all because the store doesnt wanna lose out on the cost of the fish. BUYER BEWARE!!! The best thing about it is, I got my new fish in a qt tank right now, acting the way it should and gorging itself on anything that I feed him. LOL.

 

[Thyra]

I am glad you got things worked out. I will admit that is one thing I like about Petsmart - at least the one here has a 14 day guarantee on their fish with no questions asked, they will either replace it or give a refund.

 

[KcMopar]

What was the difference in the pH from your water to their water? I have to acclimate all my Africans I buy because the locals do not keep the pH up as high as mine is, its about 8.2 to 8.4 in my tank. I always test the pH of the water in the bag from the pet store. I have a couple bowls I can float on the top of the tank water with the pet store water in it. I take out a 1/3 cup of water from the floating bowl about every 5-8 minutes and put 1/3 cup from tank back into the bowl. I do this until the pH of the bowl matches the pH of my tank water. This procedure can take about an hour or so if the pH is a big difference. This also acclimates your fish to your water very slowly and with a lot less of physical stress to the water differences.

 

[MrSomethingFishy]

I usually drip acclimate them with some airline tubing with a knot in it and a bucket. I start out by floating the bag to match temp, open the bag in a bucket and set-up the airline drip and leave it for a while. I usually wait til it gets more then half full, then I empty all that water out, and put staright tank water in and let that sit for a while too. I usually space this out over an hour, longer for sensitive species like syno's. So I did all that BEFORE i put him in his OWN tank. lol. So there was nothing wrong with what I did, the fish was obviously "panting'' when I got him, but he had the best color outta the whole tank. Both me and my buddy that works there thought he would be able to recover when I got him home, but he just didnt. I will never again buy a fish based on how healthy its colors are.