help! disstressed redtail shark

[billfish]

I just discovered my redtail shark swimming listlessly in a vertical postion in my tank! all the other fish are fine at this time as was the shark earlier this morning,I have checked all the chemical levels all check just fine (since discovering the shark). whats going on? I have had the fish for about 3 weeks,untill now had acted like a normal shark! I am going to do a partial water change in the mean time, by the way my last change was 2 days ago with a 30% change. Any help or insight will be appreciated!

 

[fishy45cory]

I dont think anything is wrong with it.

 

[Harry Tolen]

Please provide more info. What size is the tank, how long has it been set up, what kind of filtration do you have, what are the other fish in the tank, what water parameters did you test and what are the results, how do you do your water changes and what do you use to treat the water.

 

[billfish]

First the shark is acting better now,it seem to pass as fast as it came on. It was still very unsetteling.
In answer to your questions,I have a 30gl. tank,established at christmas,and it has cycled. The parameters that I checked with results were nitrate 40, nitrite 0, alk.180, ph 8.4 (on the high side) which I have since lowered to 7.0, ammonia .25
I have 2 mollies,4 swordtails,2 platies,1 glass catfish,1 betta, 1 red tail shark,1 pleco.
when I do my water changes,I use a dechlorinater,and thats it as a rule,but I will use a ph decreaser as needed, I do 30% water changes twice a week, and vacume the gravel half the tank at a time every two weeks.
I have been having a bit of cloudiness in my water,brown tint,and have just started doing a 10% change between the 30% changes and it has helped some.Should I do it more often? or increase the % of water change?
Thanks for all your input and help!

 

[Harry Tolen]

If you are using a pH reducer with that GH, your pH is probably bouncing up and down like crazy, which can seriously stress your fish. You add the pH reducer, the pH drops, and then the buffering capacity of your water drags it back up to where it was before. If your water is naturally hard and has high pH, it is probably best to leave it alone, rather than keep it moving up and down constantly. The only other way to go would be to use R/O water, but that's a lot of expense, equipment, and effort when you're not keeping any really sensitive fish.

Water changes are always good, by the way, as long as the water is being properly treated prior to being added to your tank. You say you're using a dechlorinator. Are you sure your local water system is using chlorine and not chloramines? That could also be affecting your fish.

You say that your water has a brown tint. Do you have driftwood in there? If so, the coloration could just be tannins leaching into the water from the wood, which is not bad. Depending on your filtration system, you can periodically add a bag of charcoal to pull some of the tint out of the water, but don't bother leaving the charcoal in for more than a few days, because it gets saturated quickly.