What's wrong with Juno?

She lives in a 10 gallon tank with lots of plants and 5 ember tetras. Temp is 78 degrees, pH is around 7.4, ammonia/nitrite/nitrate are 0/0/10.



I've only had her for about 4 or 5 months. In December, I noticed that she was starting to swim with a bit of a tilt in her back, but she was still very energetic, eating normally, and getting around fine. Since then, she has been slowly losing her energy. I've been giving her salt baths for about 15 minutes per day (putting her in a separate tank with 1 tablespoon aquarium salt per 2 gallons of water), but it doesn't seem to be helping at all.



The only thing that changed around the time that she started acting ill was that my city started adding chloramine to the tap water, which made it read as 0.5ppm ammonia just before she started acting weird. I switched to dechlorinating with seachem prime instead of regular dechlorinator, since I heard that helps detoxify the chloramine.



As of now, she mostly just hangs out in the roots of the floating plants and lays still most of the time. If I put some food near her, she goes nuts and eats whatever I give her happily and keeps looking for more, but that's the only time I see her acting like her normal self.

I attached pictures in order, from November, then mid December, then yesterday.

Any help to get her feeling better would be much appreciated!

TissueTenant said:

. I've been giving her salt baths for about 15 minutes per day (putting her in a separate tank with 1 tablespoon aquarium salt per 2 gallons of water),

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What is the reason for doing this?

Naughts said:

What is the reason for doing this?

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I've heard from several reddit threads and forum posts that it can help with a lot of issues, especially swim bladder things and stuff, so I thought I'd give it a try.


Following this guide, which says that it can help with disease, since I don't know what's making Juno sick I thought it might help

The article you linked does not mention ‘swim bladder things’ nor does it discuss salt baths. Aquarium salt (sodium) is used for external bacteria or fungus. Some people use Epsom salt (magnesium) baths for bloating but they are not a long term solution and are stressful on the fish. Stop these salt baths and see if the fish improves.

Naughts said:

The article you linked does not mention ‘swim bladder things’ nor does it discuss salt baths. Aquarium salt (sodium) is used for external bacteria or fungus. Some people use Epsom salt (magnesium) baths for bloating but they are not a long term solution and are stressful on the fish. Stop these salt baths and see if the fish improves.

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I stopped doing it a few weeks ago, but she has gotten worse faster than before

She isn't very interested in eating today, and she's just laying at the bottom If anyone has any idea how to help, please let me know!

I'm sorry to see that your little Juno isn't doing well

You're probably already fully aware of this, but I have to say it just in case. The dosing for seachem prime is higher for water with chloramines in it. There should be instructions on the back that say how much to use in order to get rid of chloramines.

You mentioned you've only had her for 4-5 months, but where did you get her? Do you happen to know anything about her history before you got her? It's possible she may just be nearing the end of her life, especially since the decline has happened over the course of months rather than days or weeks. The fading colors can be especially telling of that.

Seisage said:

I'm sorry to see that your little Juno isn't doing well

You're probably already fully aware of this, but I have to say it just in case. The dosing for seachem prime is higher for water with chloramines in it. There should be instructions on the back that say how much to use in order to get rid of chloramines.

You mentioned you've only had her for 4-5 months, but where did you get her? Do you happen to know anything about her history before you got her? It's possible she may just be nearing the end of her life, especially since the decline has happened over the course of months rather than days or weeks. The fading colors can be especially telling of that.

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I have been adding extra prime, but thanks for making sure

I got her from a local fish store, so I don't know anything about her history or where she came from. She was in a fresh shipment, so all I know is that she hadn't been at the store for long. It's entirely possible that she's on the older side, though