Urgent! Please Help Me Find Out What's Wrong With My Fish!

[painfullyawkwardsocially]

Hello. My name is Marcus and I recently created this account to help find out what's wrong with my fish. It has recently developed a very pale stripe down it's side and became somewhat chubby in the stomach region, has developed cloudy spots on their eyes, and is floating straight up. I apologize because I haven't given you guys much information to work with, but I myself don't know much about fish, but try my best to provide them a comfortable home I guess. I have attached a picture of the fish to help you guys out and once again I'm sorry for the lack of information that can help in the diagnosis.

 
I do however know that this fish has lived quite a while, around 6 years!
 
Thank you so much and please reply as soon as possible because I think this is serious!
 
The picture is too big to attach and I don't know what to do so I will make it my profile picture for now. If you know how I can solve this problem please help! Thanks

 

[the_lock_man]

Hello, I have moved this to the Emergencies section.
 
First off, we will need to know tank water parameters ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels, along with the tank water pH.
 
Have you made any changes to the tank recently, eg new fish, new decor, new plants?
 
How often do you change water in the tank, how much do you change when you do so, and when was the last time you did it?
 
What other fish and other livestock share the tank?
 
How big is the tank?
 
Do you know what species of fish it is?

 

[painfullyawkwardsocially]

Hey! Thanks for helping me out! I'm not really sure what breed this fish is ( I received it from a friend who like me also has no experience on caring for fish ), but I don have a picture. I can send it to you because it's too big to attach to this reply. Yes, I've added 2 plants to the tank and all the other fish who have inhabited the tank previously have passed so it's only my one fish. The tank is 25 gallons and the water's pretty warm. We changed the water yesterday and we do this once a week. I apologize, but I don't have a testing kit on me to test for the ammonia levels.
 
I hope this helps and if you need any other information that can help you please let me know.
 
Also, my fish is now sitting at the bottom of the tank resting; like it's just resting on it's stomach

 

[Baccus]

There are still many questions we will need to have answered in order to try and help could you please answer the following.

When you say that you changed the water yesterday, how much did you change? Was it all the water, 25% or 50% or some where closer to 100%?
Do you use chlorine/ chloramine remover in the water that you refilled the tank with? Or are you by chance on natural well/ spring or rain water within your home?
 
When you did the water change did you also clean the filter? If so how did you clean the filter? Did you run the filter media under the tap? Did you rinse the filter media in the out going old tank water? Or did you by chance replace all the filter media with new filter media?
 
In order to upload pictures to the site you will need an online photo storage account like Photobucket or Flicker, it is only from such photo sharing sites that you can then upload to this site from. The sites will usually resize the pictures automatically to a size and format that this site uses.

 

[painfullyawkwardsocially]

We changed about 25% of the water and used AquaSafe ( which made the tap water we used safe I guess? It says on the bottle )
We did not clean the filter when we changed the water, however we did lower the temperature of the water a bit. I will try to use Photobucket of Flicker right now so I will be back shortly with a picture of my fish

 
Thanks!

Here is some pictures of my fish; the one where it's resting on it's tummy is today and the one where it's floating straight up was yesterday.

 

[Baccus]

The fish looks like some type of cichlid, to my mind possibly a Severum but people better at identifying cichlids might be able to help more.

 

[painfullyawkwardsocially]

thanks

 I've been looking up different fish breeds to find out what this little guy is, but your guess is probably better than mine! The fish is still at the bottom of the tank, but just resting. I've tried to feed it some food, but it doesn't look like it can swim around too much or float like fish normally would.... do you have an idea of what is wrong with it?

I've confirmed that my fish is a Heros ( a banded chiclid or severum  )

 

[Baccus]

Any floating in a fish is often swim bladder related, but usually they end up floating belly upwards or listing from side to side.
Without knowing the water parameters such as pH, gH and temperature its going to be very hard to nail down the actual problem. Do you know the actual temperature of the tank? Ideally it should be in the range of 75 degrees Fahrenheit - 84 degrees Fahrenheit (24-29 degrees celcius), personally I would lean towards the lower end of the range or play  it save and be splat bang in the middle. It is possible that the problems with the fish was the water temperature eg being to warm.
 
I wont suggest randomly throwing various medications at the fish on the off chance that it may be suffering from some internal infection, which may or may not be targeted by a particular medication.

 

[painfullyawkwardsocially]

I've bought a water testing kit!

It's the 6 tests in one strip Quick Dip Aquarium Multi-test kit from Jungle! I've attached a picture of the chart with the ranges for safe chlorine, alkalinity, etc levels and the testing strip I've used here. I also typed out the results of the test as well.

www.oscarfishlover.com

The results of the water dip
 
Here are the typed results:
Nitrite: safe (0)
Hardness: Very hard (300)
Chlorine: ?
Alkalinity: 40 ( low )
PH: it's a bright yellow, so I guess 6.2 acidic
Nitrate: 200 ( unsafe ) 
 
If you have any ideas about how I can lower the Hardness, Nitrate, and PH levels please let me know! 

 

[painfullyawkwardsocially]

The temperature in the fish tank is 78 degrees.

 

[nic1]

The first thing you need to do is a big water change, looks like your nitrates are too high, try and get them within the safe zone of below 20/40.
nitrates just mean that your water is a bit too dirty and your fish isnt really coping with it.
I personally would do 50% change today then another 50% the day after.  then a 20% change weekly

 

[painfullyawkwardsocially]

Thanks, I will do a 50% water change today! I do have a question however; My fish is just sitting at the bottom of the tank and every once in a while will try to swim around. Is there a way I can guarantee that it's eating ( do I need to hand feed it? ) because whenever I put a few flakes of fish food in and they float near the fish it doesn't seem interested in it, I understand that maybe it's not hungry , but I've been monitoring it and it hasn't eaten since yesterday.....
 
Also, I've noticed it has small white spots on it and thought it was Ich, but it seems the lower fins or pectoral fins ( I'm not too sure ) have some hair/moss like look to them.
 
Thanks I appreciate the help so far,
Marcus

 

[nic1]

The fish wont eat if it is ill, the water conditions are affecting its health, its almost like putting you in front of some food when you feel sick...you wont want to eat it.
 
The small white spots/ moss like fur on the fins seem like the start of a bacterial infection, if you do a 50% change straight away, keep an eye on it for 24 hours and if there's no change I would consider adding something to the water like esha exit (thats what I use in the UK) or an anti bacterial medication -  follow the instructions then do another large water change. 

Once the water is up to standard, and the fish begins to get better then its appetite will return.

 

[painfullyawkwardsocially]

I will go buy medicine for fin rot and change the water. Hopefully the infection doesn't get worse. Do you think the fin rot is the reason why he is not able to swim? Or could that be a completely different reason?

 

[Baccus]

The fin rot would be caused by the water quality, and more of a secondary infection due to the underlying stress of what ever else is wrong.
It would be great if you could get a pH and gH test done on your tank, because I suspect that the acidity (or lack of) and hardness of the water maybe the main culprit to your fishes distress.
Ideally you want a pH of 6.0- 7.5
and a gH of medium to soft, or 4-6 gdh