"kinked" Tiger Barbs

[karlos100]

Hi guys. had my tank running now since january and love it! The fish i have chosen all get on and the choices i have made with the fish keep the tank looking active top and bottom. ive had my barbs for 4 month and they are very playful and do the odd behavior of standing vertical and shivering which ive read about and is normal(ish). the thing is ive seen my barbs bend their bodies especially when my loach approach them. now the barbs seem to both have a constant kink just in front of their tail. they swim ok but just look odd. surprised they dont swim in circles!! can anyone help?

 

[Lateral Line]

Barbs are "clean water" fish. The nose down posture is a classic sign that the water conditions are poor. Indeed, there are some that keep barbs as an indicator of water quality. You might want to watch that.

Healthy fish should not be bent. Okay, sometimes one has a physical trauma that leaves a permenant disability. If this "kink" is genuinely new, and getting worse, it is possible that your fish have an infestation of sporozoan parasites which are nasty little things that live in the muscle tissue. As they grow, they tend to deform the spine giving a kinked, or in bad cases, corrugated appearance. This condition is apallingly called "Neon Tetra Disease" because it was thought to be endemic to that species. In fact many tetras, and Cyprinids can be infected with sporozoans.

Another possibility is massively inbred, farmed fish do have weaknesses. A droopy tail is not an uncommon symptom of weak stock. If the water conditions are suspect, and the head down posture tends to suggest that, then weak fish sucumb.

The question really is, what kind of kink do you have?

 

[karlos100]

thanks for your reply. my water conditions are always spot on. my wife calls me a perfectionist because i always show her all my water test results which especially over the past few month now the tank is settled have been bang on!. the kink is hard to describle. think of the fish as a straight bar of metal.whack it against a lamp post so it puts a half circle lump in the bar and then goes straight again!?!?! i cant think of a better way to describe it!

 

[DarkEntity]

Do you mean its got a bent spine?