Help! my RTC is dying

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T

tscharf

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Apr 17, 2009
1,291
2
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Bowie MD
So over the past few days ive noticed my rtc has been very thin. ive been feeding his tank constantly and watched him as he has had plenty of opportunity to eat and just hasnt. today i came home and noticed he was floating nose down at the bottom. i grabbed him and put him in a 30gal recovery tank. hes about 7 or 8 in. He just floating around in the tank. i tried force feeding him a piece of feeder fish and he spit it out. I held him softly swishing him back n forth in the water and hell occasionally put up a decent fight to get away but then hell just float around in the tank.its like he has no balance hes just spins around and ends up on his side or upside down.

please help i dont want to lose this guy.
 
What are your ammonia and nitrite readings? If these are/have been high, that's probably the source of your problem. You mention you placed him in a 30 gallon qt... but was it cycled? If it's not, this may cause more problems than you had to start with. If your ammonia and/or nitrite are high, you'll need to look at tank volume, filtration (should be at least 8X tank volume, 10X if the tank is relatively small), and what he's been eating. Do you feed feeder fish? These could cause a parasites or infection in your red tail. If ammonia, nitrite are in acceptable levels (i.e., zero) then I'd look to what you've been feeding -- parasites brought in on the food could be the issue. Good luck to you and your red tail.
 
amonia and nitrates are good. the 30gal had cycled for 2 weeks and then has housed another rtc and tsn for a month before i put him in there. The levels are good in all of them. He was getting a mix of pellets and hotdogs on occasion. The last time he had feeders was like 3-4 weeks ago. Could it still be parasites? What do i do if it is the parasites?
 
I guess it COULD be parasites, because if a parasite came in on a feeder and lived, it would still be doing its nasty business. With good ammonia and nitrite readings, I'm stumped. The treatment for parasites would be Metronidazole, which I believe is sold as Maracyn I and Maracyn II in the LFS. But I'd be hesitant to treat until I'd really narrowed things down... might stress him too much. I'd definitely say that, in my opinion, hotdogs are not a very good food for him. Too fatty and full of wierd spices he wouldn't normally encounter, I'm sure. He really should be eating things that live in the water -- a closer match to his diet in the wild. But I don't know if that is the problem. Let's see if someone else chimes in (hopefully they will) with some other options. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.
 
justonemoretank has given excellent thoughts and advice. I can't think of anything I'd add to it at this point & I'm sorry. Usually when fish get to that degree of illness they seldom pull through.
 
try bumping up the water to 83-84 add some salt and wait. My RTC was tanked with a Bala shark that got ick and I treated the whole 220 gal tank. Bad idea as I found out, he started floating just like that with his gills curling don't know what was wrong but I did a 75%water change added salt ( just a bit) bumped up the temp and he's eating again and doing great . Not sure if I did the right thing just saying it worked for me he's back to playing, swimming and being his usual self.
 
lost him 2 days later. Ive been watching everyone since then and theyre all eating good a doing well. hopefully nothing else goes wrong
 
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