FH inactive and not eating much

[demonknight]

Bill [the one in my avatar pic] is little more than 2 years old now and well i remember he used to be this active little bugger, swimming back and forth doing somersaults in water and what not

had him in a 4ftx2ftx1.75ft tank all by himself till a few months back i shifted him into a 6ftx2ftx1.75ft tank again all for himself. he seemed to like his new home but nowadays he just prefers languishing at the bottom and very rarely does he swim up when you stand before him. he is not eating all that well either. tried laying him off food for a couple of days but no luck. changed backdrops, lighting...no luck. changed substrate...no luck. even put him back in his original home but still no luck. so over the past few months i have tried everything possible [i hope] to make him happier but it's just not working out.

any suggestions what the problem could be?

if he is not improving, i might be arm twisted to sell him and get a new FH...

 

[TwistedPenguin]

Instead of being so quick to get rid of him for another one why don't you test your water and make sure you don't have any ammonia & nitrites and that your nitrates are under 20 ppm?

 

[demonknight]

i hope i did not give the impression that i was quick to dispose of him [god forbid]. water conditions and parameters have all been checked and this is like over the past 5-6 months. not like yesterday he suddenly decided to act lazy been this way for some time now

 

[TwistedPenguin]

The best advice I can give is keep nitrates low (well under 20 ppm) and feed things like pellets, shrimp, earthworms, bloodworms, peas, zucchini, mussels, lots of different stuff instead of only pellets. Give them something to look forward to and a bit of variation. The most common cause of fish not acting "right" is water quality. Very few people keep their nitrates low enough IMO. I'm glad you aren't going to just toss him aside

 

[oHsNaP1337]

The same thing happened to my ZZ Malau, he had a crazy appetite and would eat anything I gave him. Then I started to noticed he was eating less and less by the day, until he stopped eating all together and constantly just floating in one spot. He came down with Hex, he started poopin white balled feces. I treated him with medication after he did not show improvement on his own after I constantly changed water and turned up the heat. The medication did not help, he went 2.5 months without eating anything, but he survived and is beginning to eat a little now. So watch out for that...