Buoyancy problem

[Steve_B]

My Queen Angel has been displaying this for a few months now. It has to (pull) it self downwards to the bottom. If it wants to stay low without working at it, she needs to kind of get, in-between some coral to stay down. It eats like a horse, even Angel formula, which it used to hate. I put garlic and a small amount of Vita-Chem in their pellet food, pellets that are about 95 % of their diet. I feed spirulina, Kent carnivore, New Life Spectrum, green brown and red Seaweed Selects marine algae, by Ocean Nutrition, formula 1 and 2. Therefore, they have a diverse mixture of herbivore/carnivore diet. Has anybody ever seen this condition? I am beginning to think it is because of the pellet diet, but this condition has never affected any of my other fish.

 

[Steve_B]

Hello, anybody out there? Any amount of micro bubbles have always existed in my tanks, but are so minute they are only visible if you look so hard, like you need a microscope to even see at all, thus I don't think is air embolism, because of the aforementioned. Every tank I have ever had has a certain amount, unless you have no water movement at all. I have gone to frozen prepared foods, in the possible likelihood that it is the pellet food, to no avail. It does not seem to effect the queen beyond just being an irritant. Like I said, it eats like a horse, altho I have never kept a horse in a tank. It would have to be a very small horse to fit into my 225.

 

[billsreef]

How long did you have the Queen before it started these symtpoms? Also, does abdomen look swollen or very full all of the time?

 

[Steve_B]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8163064#post8163064 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by billsreef
How long did you have the Queen before it started these symtpoms? Also, does abdomen look swollen or very full all of the time?

I have had her since the spring, I think. No abdomen look swollen, but her eyes do seem puffed out a little. I show my wife and she says she sees nothing. I think the eyes are not flat enough, which would be indicative of air embolism, but I just can't see how that is possible. This has never happened before. Now I must say that I treated for some undiagnosed bacterial or parasitic problem several months ago with Furasan (sp?) It took probably 4, 50% water changes to rid that stuff. It give the angel relieve within a few hours after the med went in. I changed the carbon and pleated filter cartridges after every water change, when the treatment was over.
Mind you, this is a 225 tank, so those water changes were no small operation. I stirred the gravel with a Rio 2500 before each change, and changed the medium after the water cleared, an then replaced the medium. It could be the med, but after all of that water replacement I just don't see how it could be. I have since obtained an RO/DI unit and have done 1, 50% change. I have another 100 gal. of new RO/DI water ready to go and I'm going to do the same 50% change with it within the next few days. I have never used that med, and it requires a lot more than the 50% change the manufacturer recommends. That is the only variable in this thing, the untried med. I'm doing the big change, this time with 99.9% pure water, but who knows. I always do big changes before resorting to any meds. As I said earlier, it has a big appetite and all is well except the described problem. I have been keeping S/W fish for many years,and as I said the med and the condition may be related, I have no idea.