New ropefish can't swim upright - rolling

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jschall

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Apr 9, 2009
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Chico, California
One of my new ropefishes can't stay upright while it swims - it's rolling side to side.
Any ideas? I don't want it to die. I properly acclimated it to the tank by equalizing temps, adding a little bit of prime to its bag as soon as I opened it and then dripping some tankwater in for a while.
 
jschall;3968775; said:
One of my new ropefishes can't stay upright while it swims - it's rolling side to side.
Any ideas? I don't want it to die.
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Wow dude, My ornate was doing the EXACT same thing. I just got him a couple days ago and it got to the point where i thought he was going to die. Nobody was able to help me so from what ive read is that its possibly trapped gas. Give it a few days and he should be back to normal. If you need to maybe bring him to the top in a net to get air, well at least thats what i did with my ornate because he had trouble swimming to the top. Thats crazy that you say that about your rope fish cause i cannot find anyone else that has this problem but me.
 
IME (and from what I've read, for a lot of people), when ropes do this the outcomes are not very good. I would expect the onset of white patches spreading from the tail up very soon. Sorry, hope I am wrong. Good luck.
 
keep an eye on the water parameters and make sure enough filtration in your tank. Its best to seperate the bichirs into other tank and lowering the water level would help also as bichirs would go up for air frequently.
 
Well good luck and i hope it turns out good for you. Only reason i thought it was trapped gas was from a sticky that talked about how trapped gas can make their tails try to float and my guess was gas trapped in the stomach area making it hard for him to stay upright. Do you have a big current in your tank? (Ex Big filter, Air stone or anything else that makes the water move?) When i took out my 3 air stones in my 75 gal my 3 bichirs were much happier. The ornate with the problem seemed to be able to stay upright easyer and my other too bichirs were much happier and swam the whole tank instead of the bottom.
 
GarNiac;3968801; said:
keep an eye on the water parameters and make sure enough filtration in your tank. Its best to seperate the bichirs into other tank and lowering the water level would help also as bichirs would go up for air frequently.
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I've got good established filtration, total about 600gph in 75 gallons, plus I have an 18w UV sterilizer which is flowing about 150gph.
I don't think I can lower the water level. One of the filters is hang-on-back, plus lowering it for too long (overnight) might expose my congo tetras to attack by the bigger bichirs.
I don't have a hospital tank to treat the ropefish in at the moment.

I had my LFS owner keep them bagged for me when his order came in so that I could pick them up immediately. I probably should've had him release them in his tanks and then picked them up in a few days.
 
Can you see it's belly? If you can, are there really dark patches? My senegal started acting like that, but she had dark patches on her belly where she had hemorrhaged. I really hope that's not what's going on with yours, because it's fatal.

I would say keep a close eye on it and make sure the others aren't picking on it. Hopefully it gets better.
 
marth;3970655; said:
Can you see it's belly? If you can, are there really dark patches? My senegal started acting like that, but she had dark patches on her belly where she had hemorrhaged. I really hope that's not what's going on with yours, because it's fatal.

I would say keep a close eye on it and make sure the others aren't picking on it. Hopefully it gets better.
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I don't see any dark patches, but I can't see its whole belly right now.
 
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