Dying of Old Age Perhaps?

[Calvin Klein]

How do you know when a fish is dying of old age or is there no real way of telling? I have an anostomus anostomus that I bought 2-3 years ago after seeing it in a tank at my local fish shop for close to a year. The price got good enough I had to go for it. Now it appears to have stopped eating and is getting pretty skinny looking. Still has good colour though which I thought was strange. Has this fish just reached the end of the road or is there something I should be doing?

 

[seedubs1]

water changes water changes water changes.....I'd start doing WC's daily or every other day. Could possibly be something odd in the water (have you checked your parameters?).

maybe try some melafix (can't really hurt anything)

have you tried feeding anything different? Has your tank temp dropped by chance?

But yes, it certainly could just be old age. Can't really do anything about that.

 

[Calvin Klein]

That water is good but I've started doing more frequent changes hoping to see some improvement. Haven't tried melafix but your right....can't hurt. Water is pretty acidic as usual. Nothing weird like nirates or amonia or anything. Tank temp has been a steady 80. I'll give the tank a blast of melafix. I've never had to use it before. Here's hoping!

 

[alexpie001]

hope all goes well. good luck and keep us posted !

 

[seedubs1]

Yeah, it's basically tea leaf extract. It's not really medication. Seems to relax fish a bit, and help them de-stress (I like to use it when I put a new cichlid in a cichlid tank).

Also seems to help nipped fins heal quicker and helps keep infections off before they start when there are external wounds IME.

and I've heard it can help with internal infections, bacterial infections, fungal infections, etc as well... but I've never used it for that.

Seems like it's "miracle cream" for fish hahaha



And I REALLY hate actual aquarium medication. It does harm to the fish as well. I ALWAYS start with upping W/C's, Melafix, and salt before going to actual medication. But there are cases where those won't solve the problem.

Anyway.....Good luck to you.

 

[Calvin Klein]

The anostomus anostomus is no longer with us unfortunately. One half day of melafix and two days of 25% water changes was not enough to bring this guy back. Here is hoping it was just the end of the road for him. Thanks for the responses all!