Help with Perch

[SamS]

I have a small (about 3in) silver perch and a few days ago he started acting funny (barrel rolling swimming vertically etc). I thought it may have been due to his filter accidentally getting shut off over night so I removed him to a QT and did a full water change on his normal tank and cleaned out the filter. After about 30minutes in the QT tank he was swimming normally again and acting totally normal.

I left him in QT for about a day and a half to make sure he was doing ok and let his normal tank have a mini-cycle (there were still a few small crabs in there that were fine) and tested the water. The water quality came up fine (10ppm Nitrates, 0ppm Ammonia and Nitrites) so I gave him a long, slow acclimation back to the tank and put him back. He seemed a little wobbly but overall fine and was swimming around a bit. When I checked on him today, he was back to barrel rolls and not swimming!

He is currently back in QT and doing fine and my water quality tests are coming back normal. So I'm stumped. The fact that removing him from the tank seems to improve his condition leaves me to believe that it has to be an environmental condition that's causing his poor swimming, but my water quality tests are showing differently. Any suggestions?

 

[julie180]

Have you checked for stray voltage?

 

[SamS]

Hmm...hadn't thought of that! But the other animals in the tank (3 small crabs and a few shrimp) seem totally fine. I'm able to stick my hand in the tank as well.

I know perch have sensitive hearing but would a filter be enough to do that? That's the only thing that is different between the display and QT. My QT runs on an undergravel filter rather than an electrical one.

 

[snorvich]

Sounds like a swim bladder problem.

 

[julie180]

If it was a swim bladder problem, it would act the same in QT. Its obviously something in the DT, just need to figure out what. Do you have excessive flow in the DT? Only other thing I can think of.

 

[SamS]

I wouldn't say its an excessive flow. It is one of my more powerful filters but it doesn't seem to be making a ton of flow. I did turn it down a bit just in case, but the fish have been in the tank for about a month now and just started displaying this problem.

This is driving me crazy! Especially since he seems totally normal after being in QT for 15 minutes.