FONTOSA ACTING FUNNY

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
S

swordtail

Candiru
MFK Member
Mar 21, 2008
155
0
46
united kingdom
Hi guys

my fontosa which i have had for the last three years has been acting funny for the past few weeks. it seems like he can't keep his balance. he seems to be releasing gas from his anus and taking in gulps of bubbles from the spray bar every every few minutes. when the lights are off he hovers at the top of the tank. to me he seems to be trying to dislodge something from the inside.

other than that he looks healthy with no signs of illness and is eating well. i have tried salt and anti bacterial to no avail.

coulding floating pellets be the problem?-taking in too much air when eating them.

should i be worried? any advice would be great. thanks
 
It could be the start of float. Google frontosa with float for more information. You could try adding some epsom salt to the tank.
 
swordtail said:
Hi guys

my fontosa which i have had for the last three years has been acting funny for the past few weeks. it seems like he can't keep his balance. he seems to be releasing gas from his anus and taking in gulps of bubbles from the spray bar every every few minutes. when the lights are off he hovers at the top of the tank. to me he seems to be trying to dislodge something from the inside.

other than that he looks healthy with no signs of illness and is eating well. i have tried salt and anti bacterial to no avail.

coulding floating pellets be the problem?-taking in too much air when eating them.

should i be worried? any advice would be great. thanks
Click to expand...

From taking floating pellet frontosa can get a build up of air/gas, as it gets worse the fishes belly gets very rounded and they struggle to stay at the bottom or mid water, in wild frontosa habitat is pretty much bottom within the rocks so would very rarely eat floating food. I had a friend who did release the gas from one of his females that had float by using a pin but its not sumthing I would ever want to do.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App
 
doyboy said:
From taking floating pellet frontosa can get a build up of air/gas, as it gets worse the fishes belly gets very rounded and they struggle to stay at the bottom or mid water, in wild frontosa habitat is pretty much bottom within the rocks so would very rarely eat floating food. I had a friend who did release the gas from one of his females that had float by using a pin but its not sumthing I would ever want to do.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App
Click to expand...
+1
Sinking pellets only .
 
sounds like he has too much gasses in his swim bladder and needs more vegetable matter in his diet. if you crush a frozen pea from a pea pod and give it to him he should digest it and release some of the gasses. although the frontosa is a carnivore they still need a bit of vegetable matter in their diet, too much protien can cause that.
 
thank you guys for all your advice and i am very gratefull for it.

i have stopped giving floating food. have added epsom salt and a dosage of octozin-helped my black nasty when he had it. if that doesn't work i will try putting him in a plastic cage so that he can't reach the surface. the main thing for me is not to panick and make things worse.

also will try peas
 
The float is caused by the ingestion of air, unlike the malawi bloat which is generally caused by a high protein diet and certain stressors (frontosa's are not subject to the malawi bloat: they don't originate from lake malawi and as piscavores, thrive on a high-protein diet).

Frontosa's in nature are deep water fish and in captivity are susceptible to the float.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom