Long time listener, first time caller. Love this forum.
I allow my husband to have his own tank downstairs because he wanted it and he promised to do all the things I tell him to do. I am disabled and have been down there maybe 3x a year in 6 years, so I have to trust him on a lot of things. I have gotten him 10 neon tetras, 5 cherry barbs, a pleco, and 5 chili rasbporas (thus the "ish). I went down there a couple of weeks ago and noticed they were pointed down, but I know they do that when they are sleeping, and the room was kind of dark, so I thought that was probably it. He's always telling me how they're all very active and swimming around. I ask him if they aare schooling because we filled the schools a couple of months ago because they weren't schooling very tightly. Apparently he doesn't know what schooling means.
I went down there tonight so we could set up his new phone and I looked at the tank, and again, they're all pointing down. The internet says swim bladder, but ALL of them (ok, almost all)? I don't know how long they've been doing this.
Husband brings me tests each 2 weeks, and changes the water 1x a week. He has a few plants in there: some dwarf sag and anubis. I don't know what that would matter, but there it is. He's new at plants.
Tank size: 20g
tank age: 2 yrs I think, maybe 3
pH: 7
ammonia: 0
nitrite: 0
nitrate: 5-10
tank temp: no heater, but regularly ~73-74.5 because of the room temp. No big fluctuations
Fish Symptoms (include full description including lesion, color, location, fish behavior): They're all pointing down, every single one but the rasboras! Coloring looks fine, fish look healthy besides pointing down, no white poop, no lesions, eyes clear, etc. The tetras are staying together on the left side of the tank, while the cherry barbs are kind of all over. Chili raspboras are tight and stay in one place, and don't seem to be doing that. They ARE active lol, but not the way they should be.
Volume and Frequency of water changes: .25g 1x week
Chemical Additives or Media in your tank: nothing other than stress coat during wc, if that counts. ich-x about a yr ago, see note below
Tank inhabitants: 10 neon tetras, 1 pleco, 5 cherry barbs, 5 chili rasboras
Recent additions to your tank (living or decoration): A few plants that he's been slowly adding.
Exposure to chemicals:
Digital photo (include if possible):
One note, not sure if it matters, when we stupidly got some fish from petco ... I guess a year ago, maybe less, we didn't quarantine them long enough and they had ick and it almost completely wiped out his tank before I got down there. Now he's kinda paranoid about everything, but we haven't had any more fish deaths after the treatment of ich-x.
Another note: He had some pretty bad black beard algae (we think), and we put some of my amano shrimp in there, and they helped a lot with the algae, but then just ...died, I guess. Waited for montsh to see if they were doing that hiding thing they do, but they never came back. Don't know if that means anything.
Anyway, any ideas? Maybe the lighting schedule? He has it so that the lights come on at about 6pm and go off at about 11pm. Basically the time that he's hanging out down there. There is natural light all day, but not very bright. Could that be it? There are not a lot of plants, but he does have some fake ones til his live ones grow in better. I'm kicking myself for not checking on them more often. Thanks in advance for any brainstorming.
edit: ac110 filter
another edit: he was overfeeding, but has been better at it the past couple of months (he says). He said he realized he was overfeeding when he was paying closer attention to how I feed mine.
I allow my husband to have his own tank downstairs because he wanted it and he promised to do all the things I tell him to do. I am disabled and have been down there maybe 3x a year in 6 years, so I have to trust him on a lot of things. I have gotten him 10 neon tetras, 5 cherry barbs, a pleco, and 5 chili rasbporas (thus the "ish). I went down there a couple of weeks ago and noticed they were pointed down, but I know they do that when they are sleeping, and the room was kind of dark, so I thought that was probably it. He's always telling me how they're all very active and swimming around. I ask him if they aare schooling because we filled the schools a couple of months ago because they weren't schooling very tightly. Apparently he doesn't know what schooling means.
I went down there tonight so we could set up his new phone and I looked at the tank, and again, they're all pointing down. The internet says swim bladder, but ALL of them (ok, almost all)? I don't know how long they've been doing this.Husband brings me tests each 2 weeks, and changes the water 1x a week. He has a few plants in there: some dwarf sag and anubis. I don't know what that would matter, but there it is. He's new at plants.
Tank size: 20g
tank age: 2 yrs I think, maybe 3
pH: 7
ammonia: 0
nitrite: 0
nitrate: 5-10
tank temp: no heater, but regularly ~73-74.5 because of the room temp. No big fluctuations
Fish Symptoms (include full description including lesion, color, location, fish behavior): They're all pointing down, every single one but the rasboras! Coloring looks fine, fish look healthy besides pointing down, no white poop, no lesions, eyes clear, etc. The tetras are staying together on the left side of the tank, while the cherry barbs are kind of all over. Chili raspboras are tight and stay in one place, and don't seem to be doing that. They ARE active lol, but not the way they should be.
Volume and Frequency of water changes: .25g 1x week
Chemical Additives or Media in your tank: nothing other than stress coat during wc, if that counts. ich-x about a yr ago, see note below
Tank inhabitants: 10 neon tetras, 1 pleco, 5 cherry barbs, 5 chili rasboras
Recent additions to your tank (living or decoration): A few plants that he's been slowly adding.
Exposure to chemicals:
Digital photo (include if possible):
One note, not sure if it matters, when we stupidly got some fish from petco ... I guess a year ago, maybe less, we didn't quarantine them long enough and they had ick and it almost completely wiped out his tank before I got down there. Now he's kinda paranoid about everything, but we haven't had any more fish deaths after the treatment of ich-x.
Another note: He had some pretty bad black beard algae (we think), and we put some of my amano shrimp in there, and they helped a lot with the algae, but then just ...died, I guess. Waited for montsh to see if they were doing that hiding thing they do, but they never came back. Don't know if that means anything.
Anyway, any ideas? Maybe the lighting schedule? He has it so that the lights come on at about 6pm and go off at about 11pm. Basically the time that he's hanging out down there. There is natural light all day, but not very bright. Could that be it? There are not a lot of plants, but he does have some fake ones til his live ones grow in better. I'm kicking myself for not checking on them more often. Thanks in advance for any brainstorming.
edit: ac110 filter
another edit: he was overfeeding, but has been better at it the past couple of months (he says). He said he realized he was overfeeding when he was paying closer attention to how I feed mine.
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