Baby Bala Swimming Vertically (Head Down)

[TarkMalbot]

I recently had ICH in my tank on one of my larger Bala (6 inch).  To combat this I did a 30% water change treated the water with white spot treatment, added some aquarium salt and turned the temperature to 28 degrees.  I followed the course as per the instructions and yesterday carried out another 30% water change, cleaned the filters and vacuumed the gravel and turned the temperature down to 27 degrees with a plan to slowly return it to 25-26 degrees over the next few days.  This morning I checked all the water parameters which were Ammonia 0.00 Nitrite 0.3 and Nitrate 5 and this evening I have noticed one of my two small Balas is swimming vertically with its head down.  It doesn't seem to have any damage to its body, nothing abnormal with its gills, no white spot and all my other fish including its brother of the same size appear to be fine.
 
Does anyone know what is wrong with it and what I should do?  My tank was cycled using filter media from other tanks and I have had no more than 0.25 ppm Ammonia, 0.3 ppm Nitrate and 5ppm Nitrate in the tank ever since I started testing the water on the 10th Feb.  I have done a search and all I seem to find is information about cycling tanks, ammonia poisoning and how peoples tanks are too small for Balas.  I don't think it is ammonia poisoning because he is pointing downwards and even my Seachem Ammonia Alert has never moved from 0.  Hopefully someone can give me some useful help.
 
See the video below:
 
http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=spSLlvuvhBk
 
Thanks very much for any help.
 

 

[Mikey1]

how many balas do you have? they should be in groups of 6-8+
 
any less and they will be stressed constantly....
 
what your bala is doing does not really seem that unusual unless hes doing it constantly....i have kept many large shoals of balas and in my experience they seem to be very acrobatic type fish (for lack of a better term)....some of mine quite regularily literally turn themselves completely upside down to pick at food and debris on plants and tank ornaments

 

[fluttermoth]

I'd suspect your nitrite; many fish exhibit headstanding behaviour with raised nitrite levels.

 

[TarkMalbot]

One more thing that I have just thought of....
 
Normally I feed them on dried flakes but this morning as a treat I fed them some frozen daphnia.  Could it just have been greedy and a little constipated or something?

 

[Mikey1]

One more thing that I have just thought of....
 
Normally I feed them on dried flakes but this morning as a treat I fed them some frozen daphnia.  Could it just have been greedy and a little constipated or something?

 
 
it seems frozen food posts have been all over this forum today.....
 
so i will repeat myself once again....frozen foods are way over rated, flakes are better and more nutritional for your fish....
 
did he eat alot of food from the surface?....sometimes when fish do this they swallow air which causes boyancy problems for 10-15 mins afterwards

 

[TarkMalbot]

how many balas do you have? they should be in groups of 6-8+
 
any less and they will be stressed constantly....
 
what your bala is doing does not really seem that unusual unless hes doing it constantly....i have kept many large shoals of balas and in my experience they seem to be very acrobatic type fish (for lack of a better term)....some of mine quite regularily literally turn themselves completely upside down to pick at food and debris on plants and tank ornaments

 
I have 6 together that have been shoaling together for 4 weeks.  This one in particular has not been with the group for the last 2 hours since I noticed it and is still in the same place doing the same thing as in the video.
 

I'd suspect your nitrite; many fish exhibit headstanding behaviour with raised nitrite levels.

 
I tested the Nitrite today and it was pretty much just off 0 but the next shade up was 0.3 so worst case would be 0.3 ppm at the moment.  I will take a water sample to my LSF and get them to test it and see if they get the same readings as me.

One more thing that I have just thought of....
 
Normally I feed them on dried flakes but this morning as a treat I fed them some frozen daphnia.  Could it just have been greedy and a little constipated or something?

 
 
it seems frozen food posts have been all over this forum today.....
 
so i will repeat myself once again....frozen foods are way over rated, flakes are better and more nutritional for your fish....
 
did he eat alot of food from the surface?....sometimes when fish do this they swallow air which causes boyancy problems for 10-15 mins afterwards

 
I fed them early afternoon so it would have been over 8 hours ago now.  I de-frosted the cube in a cup with tank water and then tipped it into the tank a little at a time and it pretty much sunk straight away and they all went crazy.  They ate it all before it got to the bottom but my Bala rarely eat from the surface.

 

[TarkMalbot]

RIP little sharky.

I took a sample of water to my LFS and they said it was perfect other than slightly high phosphate which is common due to our local water supply.

 

[lukyjay]

I'm very sorry to hear about your Bala Shark.

So it was the high Phosphate that caused it? Why didn't it affect your other Bala Sharks?

did he eat alot of food from the surface?....sometimes when fish do this they swallow air which causes boyancy problems for 10-15 mins afterwards

Thank you for making my day. That put a funny image in my head.

 

[TarkMalbot]

It shouldn't have dies from the phosphate levels as its not harmful to fish but encourages algae. I personally think that because it was so young and small it didn't handle the white spot treatment well or recovering from white spot or perhaps the change in water chemistry and drop in salt content (that was used during treatment) after a water change.

I plan just to try and keep a steady environment as I don't really want to stress the bigger fish either.