albino rainbow shark paralyzed????

[Connor0729]

hey, my little brothers albino rainbow shark has been acting weird for the past couple of days. it was just hanging around at the surface and not eating, then it started going into spasms every once in a while, then more often and now has turned yellowish and only swims with it's front fins. we moved it to our hospital tank like 10 minutes ago and at first was at the bottom but is at the top again now and still looks paralyzed from the "waist" down. HELP PLEASE

 

[phoenixx]

what are the water parameters? what are its tankmates? did you do any recent waterchanges, filter cleaning? changed filter media? any out of the ordinary such as recent power outages, broken or failed equipment?

sorry but your situation does not sound good.

 

[Connor0729]

the shark has been acting this way since our last water change which was on tuesday. we cleaned out the filter cartridge then too. right now its acting a little better since we put it in the hospital tank, but im still worried. we don't know the water parameters, but all the other fish are fine (blood parrot, angel, 5 buenos aires tetras, and 2 betta imbellis). the tank is a 35 gallon, but we do massive water changes (50 percent) at least once a week, sometimes twice a week, so the perameters must be fine. i hope. i'll see about getting a test kit if i need to.

 

[phoenixx]

Without the actual parameters I'm shooting in the dark, but will suggest an opinion. If the shark has been acting strangely after a water change in combination with a filter cleaning, you may be experiencing an ammonia spike. If you did a real thorough job in cleaning out the filter, discarding any old cartridges/floss, you may have inadvertantly depleted a good amount of your beneficial bacteria colony which is responsible for converting ammonia. The other fish may be alright because they may be hardier than the scaleless shark, therefore appearing normal.

What type of filtration do you have on the 35g? Do you always remember to use water conditioner when adding new water into the tank? Also, have you observed any of the tankmates harassing the shark.

I really think this problem was the result of the water change/filter cleaning.

 

[phoenixx]

In the meantime I think it may be best to just leave the lights off in the hospital tank and try not to feed the shark. Monitor him every so often but just let it rest in peace. I have experienced first hand how well some fish can bounce back on their own without our intervention. Keeping my fingers crossed for you but I know sharks are pretty fragile.

 

[Connor0729]

we've got a 55 gallon filter and we always remember to add conditioner AND we add bio-support every time. we treat this tank the same as mine and i've got a red tail shark thats acting as normal as ever. and dude, thanks for all the help.