So my tiny blue surgeonfish, which recently recovered from ich, seems to be at deaths door. Honestly I don't know what is wrong, so I feel like the worst fish keeper. I'd love some feedback on what I'm doing wrong and how I can improve.
- Background: see this topic, or in short: I got this fish for free, after a while in quarantine I spotted ich, so it was treated for it with Seachem Cupramine. This seemed to have worked well. He was healthy again, swimming around like a happy little fish. The difference was huge, so I thought he recovered.
- Situation after: I did notice he was a little skinny, but I'm new to the hobby so I was never sure if this fish is supposed to look like this as a juvenile or if he was really skinny. Either way I decided to feed him a good amount of food specifically for surgeonfish (so algea based, from aqua forest) with sometimes some frozen food, tiny shrimp, but not too often. Since he was still in quarantine together with the clown fish, just a bigger tank now, I am still doing very regular water changes to stay ahead of the amonia, nitrites and such. I have a Seachem amonia badge and amonia, nitrate and nitrite tests. Amonia never went into the warning range. Last week I did read nitrates and nitrites, so I did a larger water change. That reading is as good as 0 again. The salinity is always at 35, I top off manually daily with rodi and do a reading of the tank water and of the new batch water when doing a water change. The temperature is always between 25 degrees Celcius and 25,5 degrees Celcius. What else should I be reading? There shouldn't be any copper, as they were moved to an entire new quarantine, after being in smaller quarantine tanks for the copper treatment. The pH is always at 8,2 when I measure it, which is what's on the box of the salt I'm using (also aqua forest).
- Situation now: he always stayed rather skinny, but he was eating eagerly and swimming around, so I wasn't super alarmed at the time. I did notice last week, around the time I also read nitrates and nitrites, that he was on the floor more often then usual. Normally he is only on the floor, next to something to stay in place, during the night when sleeping. This seemed to be fixed after the water change, but appearantly only temporarily as now he's just on the floor permanently. He's no longer coming up for food since yesterday and I also noticed very heavy breathing since the day before. Just to add: the breathing was very slow/normal before then. I payed pretty closed attention to that, with him and the clown both, after the ich situation.
- The clown fish: his tank mate on the other hand has never been more healthy .. or is he? He's fat, has nice colors, swimming around and as soon as he sees me follows me around for food like there is no tomorrow. At least he looks real healthy to me. When he is calm again (so not chasing me for food) his breathing seems good. Meaning for me that his mouth is closed most of the time and I don't see his gills super active at all.
I've been reading on the forum and looking online, but besides being skinny, and the now recently heavy breathing, I don't see real symptons. Or I'm to new to see them. I was thinking some kind of internal parasite or worms, but since he's no longer eating I'm unable to doze it in the food. I went and bought some for in the water, but it feels like I'm already to late. Now I feel like I should have followed up with some deworming procedure shortly after the ich treatment. Since I wrote skinny a lot in this post, it's probably something like that?
- Background: see this topic, or in short: I got this fish for free, after a while in quarantine I spotted ich, so it was treated for it with Seachem Cupramine. This seemed to have worked well. He was healthy again, swimming around like a happy little fish. The difference was huge, so I thought he recovered.
- Situation after: I did notice he was a little skinny, but I'm new to the hobby so I was never sure if this fish is supposed to look like this as a juvenile or if he was really skinny. Either way I decided to feed him a good amount of food specifically for surgeonfish (so algea based, from aqua forest) with sometimes some frozen food, tiny shrimp, but not too often. Since he was still in quarantine together with the clown fish, just a bigger tank now, I am still doing very regular water changes to stay ahead of the amonia, nitrites and such. I have a Seachem amonia badge and amonia, nitrate and nitrite tests. Amonia never went into the warning range. Last week I did read nitrates and nitrites, so I did a larger water change. That reading is as good as 0 again. The salinity is always at 35, I top off manually daily with rodi and do a reading of the tank water and of the new batch water when doing a water change. The temperature is always between 25 degrees Celcius and 25,5 degrees Celcius. What else should I be reading? There shouldn't be any copper, as they were moved to an entire new quarantine, after being in smaller quarantine tanks for the copper treatment. The pH is always at 8,2 when I measure it, which is what's on the box of the salt I'm using (also aqua forest).
- Situation now: he always stayed rather skinny, but he was eating eagerly and swimming around, so I wasn't super alarmed at the time. I did notice last week, around the time I also read nitrates and nitrites, that he was on the floor more often then usual. Normally he is only on the floor, next to something to stay in place, during the night when sleeping. This seemed to be fixed after the water change, but appearantly only temporarily as now he's just on the floor permanently. He's no longer coming up for food since yesterday and I also noticed very heavy breathing since the day before. Just to add: the breathing was very slow/normal before then. I payed pretty closed attention to that, with him and the clown both, after the ich situation.
- The clown fish: his tank mate on the other hand has never been more healthy .. or is he? He's fat, has nice colors, swimming around and as soon as he sees me follows me around for food like there is no tomorrow. At least he looks real healthy to me. When he is calm again (so not chasing me for food) his breathing seems good. Meaning for me that his mouth is closed most of the time and I don't see his gills super active at all.
I've been reading on the forum and looking online, but besides being skinny, and the now recently heavy breathing, I don't see real symptons. Or I'm to new to see them. I was thinking some kind of internal parasite or worms, but since he's no longer eating I'm unable to doze it in the food. I went and bought some for in the water, but it feels like I'm already to late. Now I feel like I should have followed up with some deworming procedure shortly after the ich treatment. Since I wrote skinny a lot in this post, it's probably something like that?
