Sick Fish

[chuck8825]

One of my dwarf rainbowfish was having trouble keeping his equilibrium two days ago. I put him in a sick tank and he hasn't gotten any better. He was initially bobbing up and down as if he couldn't stop from sinking in the tank, but tonight I noticed that him lying sideways on the bottom for a few minutes before trying to bob to the top.

This same issue happened to a Golden Gourami two months ago. The Gourami was only able to swim sideways along the bottom of my sick tank. After a week of this one night I noticed that he was swimming fine as if nothing had happened.

Any idea what is going on, and if there is any treatment I should be using?

A quick background on my tank: 50 gallon with 2 zebra danios, 3 harlequin rasbora, 10 neon tetras, 1 golden gourami, 3 dwarf rainbowfish, 2 boseman's rainbowfish & 4 apple snails. I have Eheim canister filter (mechanical & biological), a small Eheim ecco filter (chemical & biogical) & a UV sterilizer.

 

[chuck8825]

Well the rainbowfish was not as lucky as the gourami. Unfortunately I found him dead in the tank this evening.

 

[harrishawk]

I've been have the same problem with a few of my fish if anyone can help please do!!

 

[Roan Art]

I've been have the same problem with a few of my fish if anyone can help please do!!

Why are you adding salt to your tank? Many of those are not brackish water fish.

If you are trying to go brackish, you need marine mix, not salt, and a hydrometer to measure the salinity with. You also need to remove many of the fish that are not brackish.

Roan

 

[TheZoo]

might be a swim bladder problem. Do some big water changes, for sure. Somewhere I heard that this issue can be caused by too much protein in the diet, anyone know if this is true??

 

[chuck8825]

To me it appeared to be a swim bladder problem. I also heard that a high protein diet might be a problem, but not sure if it is true or not.

I usually give fish a well balanced flake food in the morning and freeze dried brine shrimp or bloodworms on the evening. I occassionaly feeds the fish seaweed using a clip, but the only fish that seems interested is the gourami.