fish sitting at bottom of tank please help

my platinum green tiger barb is sitting at the bottom, when i turned on the light he swam up and had trouble swimming, swimming in circles but like up and down where he was going upside down. i need help asap, i tried feeding and he tried to eat and did the spin thing and sunk back down, he is breathing heavy too. the other fish are totally normal so could it still be the water parameters? he just moved and is spinning again. he looks in so much pain he’s sitting under a plant right now and is trying his best to keep swimming, i think i’m watching him die, please answer asap

How many gallons is the tank please?
How many fish and which type?
Water stats in ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and ph.
What do you feed your fish?

Sorry the fish is in a bad way and sounds like the fish is not going to make it

Sounds like swim bladder, to an internal bateria infection.

WILDER said:

How many gallons is the tank please?
How many fish and which type?
Water stats in ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and ph.
What do you feed your fish?

Sorry the fish is in a bad way and sounds like the fish is not going to make it

Sounds like swim bladder, to an internal bateria infection.

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he is with 2 other tiger barbs as one passed away a week ago, and one rainbow shark, i’m not sure of the ammonia nitrite or nitrate as i don’t have a kit, ik it’s bad i haven’t had the chance to pick on up, the tank is a 20gal and is 3 or 4 years old i can’t remember i feed my fish flakes, i just tested the ph and it shows as 7.6 which i’m not sure how accurate my kit is.
i checked on him this morning and he ended up passing away but i would still appreciate any info ou could give me i’ve been treating the tank with prazipro once a week for two weeks for the barb that passed a week ago and after he passed i stopped treating since the other fish seemed normal and i didn’t wanna over do it, was that the wrong choice?

Whats your tank maintenance like?

How often do you change water, how much do you change? what chemicals do you use to treat the water?

one rainbow shark

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These need a 50 gallon tank minimum

NickAu said:

Whats your tank maintenance like?

How often do you change water, how much do you change? what chemicals do you use to treat the water?


These need a 50 gallon tank minimum

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i apologize i didn’t realize rainbow sharks required so much room, my local fish store told me it was okay for them in a 20gal, i do water changes once a week and take out about 25%, i treated with praziquantel for my other fish because i was told he may have worms.

For future reference, never believe anything an LFS worker tells you till you have researched it for yourself. There are some good ones but they are few and far between. The rest haven't a clue.

The best site for research is http://www.seriouslyfish.com/knowledge-base/

essjay said:

For future reference, never believe anything an LFS worker tells you till you have researched it for yourself. There are some good ones but they are few and far between. The rest haven't a clue.

The best site for research is http://www.seriouslyfish.com/knowledge-base/

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okay thank you, i thought i could trust mine as it is a very big fish store and one of the biggest in my state, usually they give out reliable information but i’ll be sure to do my research next time