Gar acting weird please help!!

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Water parameters are ammonia .25 nitrite .25 nitrate less than 10
He is 6 inches long. I don't think its due to water quality, my tank is the same as always, although i missed my water change today due to rain.

It has advanced from being only at meal times to all the time. He spends most of his time on the floor or at the top now, but he still swims around a bit. He makes jerky movements while going up for air. His back gets pretty bent up sometimes when he swims.

Yes he did crash into things last night during feeding and no he doesn't look bloated. He couldn't hold on to the food and balance at the same time. I didn't feed him tonight to see if his GI needs to clear up or something. Hopefully he didn't hurt his back and its just gas or constipation or something.
 
Please don't get offended I'm just trying to help but your water is not fine. There should never be any ammonia or nitrite reading. It should always be 0. A fully cycled tank with proper filtration and cleaning schedule should never have ammonia or nitrite and nitrates should be less than 40 or 20 depending on the species that are being kept. Your fish is acting like that due to poor water quality.
 
OscarRobinson;3744437; said:
Please don't get offended I'm just trying to help but your water is not fine. There should never be any ammonia or nitrite reading. It should always be 0. A fully cycled tank with proper filtration and cleaning schedule should never have ammonia or nitrite and nitrates should be less than 40 or 20 depending on the species that are being kept. Your fish is acting like that due to poor water quality.
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while his tank needs to get that fixed that is most likly not the issue. trust me on that issue and lets leave it at that.

to bennlfer, u need to do a few more WC and get that fixed. while it is possible to be caused by that i doubt it is that issue but fixing that will help eliminate that question. since u said he does hit the sides it may be that issue. it has to be a pretty nasty hit to do spinal issue but it is possible. Could also be a blockage so not feeding for a day or so will help see if that is the issue
A video will greatly help us diagnose. at least give us pics, vid would be absolutly the best though

ps at 6in WC does have a much better chance at causing ur issue. What is ur PH?
 
ok after reading through the posts here is my assessment of your problem(s) :

- your water quality is indeed poor, as stated earlier there should never be ammonia or nitrite readings other than 0. this has likely contributed to the behavior of your fish as well as it's erratic behavior which likely was the cause of...

- a spinal injury of some sort. i have had gars knock themselves out before, and then they eventually corrected the problem on their own. yours seems to have gotten worse, and the repeated injuring of the fish may have led to a more permanent back injury. if you can post pics of the fish that will help drastically.

at this point i would advise doing a large water change (50-70%) to bring down your ammonia and nitrite levels.
keep the lights off in the tank to minimize the gar being spooked.
skip feeding the fish for a few days and see if the condition changes or improves.

if the back injury persists, you likely have no other (humane) option other than euthanizing the fish.

please keep us posted on its progress. at the very least, getting on to a good water change schedule (try 50% every other week) will at least help save the other fishes in the tank.

good luck--
--solomon
 
Ok will do. Its sunny today so ill do the water change definitely. So does this mean my tank isn't cycled? A cycled tank CAN get ammonia and nitrite right?

My pH is high.. 7.6 or 7.8
 
I go in and out of my house a lot while doing water changes and i rinse all my equipment outside beforehand. My mom wouldn't let me cause i would track water into the house.
 
What size tank is it? The gar should not be crashing so often...
 
Its a 135 and he only started crashing recently. He has enough room to move but no coordination anymore. He is still pretty much the same, no progress. I performed a 50% water change yesterday.
 
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