Cheering dats up - my IT is suddenly not doing so well

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DaveB

DaveB

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Feb 22, 2008
1,244
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Miami
I'm a bit worried. My largest IT and the first one I ever got is looking very unhappy as of this morning. It looks like he took a bit of abuse, likely from the distichodus. But at a glance he looks far more intact than he has at other times in the past when he was fine.

He has always gone in and out of stability depending on the time of day and has withstood several nips and surface wounds but right now he has that scarey sideways tilt and sad look on his face and I'm really afraid he might never recover - in my experiences in the past this is what happened to another beat up IT and an AT that wasted away for 6 months before dying. So I'm kind of pessimistic.

This guy has a history of moodiness/random loss of appetite but has always at least been straight up and down. Right now he's curled over partly on his side. That's the scary part.

So of course my instincts are clean water, more salt, higher temps. I also have been treating the tank with melafix and more air for some wounds the distichodus has from another fish too. I have heard conflicting stories about how dats react to that stuff but I'm giving a 1/2 dose and adding extra air and the other 4 are all fine. IME the stuff has been great for surface wounds from nipping/fighting and fin regrowth.

Any other steps I could take without knowing more about his issue? He has a few chunks out of his left side fin, but he's actually curled over the other side.

I guess I'm concerned that it's internal. But I've never had to medicate dats before and have no idea how.
 
2 hours later (since noticing, not since posting) he's back to normal. Unstable but regular posture. He's always unstable when the lights are one though.

So now I guess we have a useless thread.

So talk about your moody dats!
 
Which lights,the ones in the hood?Try keeping them off for a while if so.
 
I have either 40 or 80 watts over the 125g tank. They always scatter when they initially come on in the evening, even though they get a huge amount of natural sunlight during the day.

I'm not so worried about that. It's just that today he legitimately looked like a fish about to die.

He's showing full stability right now. I think he's hungry.
 
My IT was pitch black for two months after I got it, and would only become stable when feeding.
Had him since the summer and still isn't stable.
Tried everything, black back ground, blue bkacground w/gravel and now he's on bb and still very dark. :irked:
I'm going to try and get a few more dats and see if anything changes, as when I first got him he was in with an other IT of same size but he killed it.
 
Forgot to add, IT is in with an african brown knife about the same size.
I've never really seen them fight or anything, but the knife does sometimes swim very close to the IT and rub up against him..
Should I remove the ABK? I dont have any other tanks for the abk or I would have moved him to be safe already. :nilly:
 
My guy actually was 100% stable and never changed when I first got him. It was only after having several other IT friends that he started with his routine of fading in and out. He's like a living mood ring. He'll change every five minutes back and forth sometimes.

I have a ghost knife in with them and they never cross paths or have any issue. Different fish, but I don't know, maybe ABKs are similar temperament?
 
DaveB;3062818; said:
My guy actually was 100% stable and never changed when I first got him. It was only after having several other IT friends that he started with his routine of fading in and out. He's like a living mood ring. He'll change every five minutes back and forth sometimes.

I have a ghost knife in with them and they never cross paths or have any issue. Different fish, but I don't know, maybe ABKs are similar temperament?
Click to expand...

I've seen many knifes kept with dats which is Why I didnt think it would be a problem. When the lights go out my knife swims underneath the dat and all around him until the dat chases him off. When the lights are on the knife is hiding in its tube or just swimming down at the bottom and the Dats in a corner of the tank pitch black.

Dats are :screwy:
 
I also tried a distichodus in my tank. Looks are decieving. I never new they could be so aggressive. I had to get rid of it. A shame because they are a great looking fish.
 
They can be real jerks but it's all in the tankmates. You can trick them into being peaceful. I love them.
 
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