Help!Dieing parrot fish

[talia]

Hiya..really worried my parrot fish (roughly7yrs old) is currently upside down on the bottom of the tank, yet still breathing at a normal rate. I feel so helpless..is there anyway to help a dieing fish, or have you got to let them be? have got other fish in the tank, who seem fine..the water seems to always be cloudy even after change and there is always slimey algae around the light and top of tank (above the water line)..she is such a hardy fish and has been revived a few times before, but its the being upside down and not moving that is worrying!any suggestions would be so appreciated!!

Thank you

[talia]

moved,but still upside down, i think she has literally gone...when can you be completly sure?her fins are still slightly moving, but could be the air...

[YuccaPatrol]

Cloudy water can indicate a bacterial bloom which can consume the oxygen that should be there available for your fish. This can be is caused by excess nutrients in the water, either from overfeeding or from not enough water changes.

Have you been testing your water?

You can put your fish to sleep by placing it in ice water.

Sad to hear this. We have a pair of these parrots and my wife loves them a lot.

[mooman]

The algea growth in itself is nothing to worry about (its actually good to have some algea in a tank), but it's location suggests that you might be letting the water evaporate for awhile and then "topping off". IMO you should never need to top off a tank. If you do, that means it's time to do a water change. Lots of algea in a tank combined with cloudy water would (as yucca pointed out) would indicate too many nutrients going into the water (food) combined with not enough nutrients being taken out (gravel vacing and WCs). Get the water tested and let us know the results. Make them do a liquid test for nitrates (no stick tests, too inaccurate)

Last thing, what is your filter maintainance schedule and what do you do with the media when you change/clean it? Are you using any chemical filtration like zeolite or ammo-chips (these things are no good for several reasons)

[talia]

Thankyou both for replying, really appreciated. really sadly my lovely and playfull miss pomadou (our parrot fish) has now gone. Im sure of this as there is no movement, just not looking forward to moving her..

im not the one who generally cleans the tank, but i know when it is that the contents of the filter are changed. How do you test for nitrates?..any other recommendations would be appreciated...
thanx again

tala

[mooman]

Your Local fish store should do a nitrate test for free. Without writing a whole article, I'll give you the ultra short version of tank maintainance. Fish produce ammonia (highly toxic). The bacteria that cover every SURFACE area of your tank (especially the filter sponge) convert the ammonia to nitrite (also toxic). Another species of bacteria convert the nitrite to nitrate (not toxic in low concentrations. The reason (one of them) for doing water changes is to remove nitrate laden water and replace it with nitrate free water, thereby keeping nitrate concentration low. If a tank is getting topped off repeatedly, the nitrate is staying in the tank and building up. If you fish died of nitrate poisoning I believe it will show reddness around the gill area (should be visible post mortum)

The bacteria mentioned above LOVE highly oxyginated water (aka your filter). As a consequence your filter media has a much higher concentration of these bacteria. When you rplace your media, or rinse it out in tap water (contains chlorine which kills bacteria) you get rid of those bacteria. Now there are not enough bacteria to deal with ammonia production, and you get an ammonia spike (kills fish and can cause cloudy water).

Not sure which if any of these issues is responsible without a more detailed account of maintainance practices and a water test. Let us know what you find. Good luck, and sorry for your loose.