BGK sick?

I received my Black Ghost Knife about 4 days ago. He is small at only 1.5". He has spent the past 4 days hiding in the back corner near the heater. I assumed he was being timid and needed time to adjust to the tank. This morning I was excited for a split second when I saw him near the front of the tank. Then I realized he was lying on the bottom and breathing rapidly. I filled a 1g bucket with clean tap water at the temp of the tank, primed it then transferred the ghost knife. His breathing has seemed to return to a more normal pace but he is still fairly inactive. I am also finishing a large 75% WC as I write this and will return him to the tank when it is done. I know BGK's are supposed to be sensitive when small so I have been monitoring him closely. He hasn't shown any signs of disease with the exception of being shy and not eating. I do weekly 50% plus water changes. Parameters are fine.

Floated in the bag for about 15 min. Transferred into 1g bucket with bag water and I slowly added tank water over about 30 min until the bucket was nearly filled. Then netted into the tank. And yes there is a reason for no QT, poor judgement :shakehead:. Many of this fish in the tank are new within the past month, so I disregarded the concern for keeping disease out of the tank. I should have thought more about monitoring and keeping disease out of the BGK.

I'm not sure I didn't think to test the water in the bag.

I covered the sides of the tank to keep the morning sunlight out and have been keeping an eye on him. I've caught him swimming around a few times but mostly just lying on the bottom in the back corner. I'm not overly familiar with normal BGK behavior. I don't know if it's normal for this fish to lay on the bottom but over the past few days he has stayed mostly mid-low level, which worries me now.

The only thing that I can think of that may have bothered him is a CPO that I have in the tank. Otherwise its just cories and tetras. The tank is fairly heavily planted. There are also a couple caves that he can use to hide in.

EDIT: A note on the CPO. I've never seen him bother a fish before. I kept him in a 10g with a bunch of RCS for a while and never saw a single adult or juvi disappear.

He died Still not really sure why.


Sent from my SCH-I510 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App