Hujeta Gar fish appears to be dying!

[Lollum96]

Bought 4 of these little Hujeta gars (not real gars) Ctenolucius Hujeta about 4 months ago and put them in a 50g grow out. They was only about 3 inches long at the time of purchase.

Within a two weeks 3 out of 4 of them was dead. I thought they just didn't take the journey well as I bought them online and they spent over 24 hours in the post. The bag they arrived in was full of debris and poop.

The last Hujeta has been going strong for 4 months. He's been eating neon tetras and guppies that I breed at home. Since day one he's refused all dead foods including pellets, prawn and even live blood worms and earthworms.

Today I woke up to find him lay upside down on the bottom of the tank repeatedly thrashing around like he's trying to swim but can't swim!

I highly doubt he will survive.. I'm more just wanting to diagnose the issue to prevent the same thing happening again in the future..

Water is crystal clear (tested with API master test kit every week) and gets changed 30% weekly and the tank temperature is 28 degrees Celsius.

Video below

4 July 2023

youtube.com

 

[kno4te]

Hard to tell. Maybe traveled badly but also look skinny too.

 

[Americancichlidsaredabest]

What are the water parameters?

 

[reptilerescued]

I have one pair of them.

2nd day home was guppies I've kept for years.

3rd day right on to pellets and that's great since I don't have to walk around netting guppies from one tank and dropping them in another.

If you are feeding store bought or wild caught feeders that my be your issue who knows what you are introducing to them as far as infected or toxic fish from
un- know sources.

Mine try to eat the large hikari floaters but they are to big of a pellet still to swallow even after the chew it in 1/2.

They are able to eat the topfin medium floating pellets though.

I have no idea if these were wild caught or captive bread, they were bought @ petco.

Try throwing the pellet with a bit of force about a inch from the side of their mouth I found out fast they like the fast action and will not hit on a pellet just floating by.

You could also try tilapia or shrimp on a skewer and swim/wiggle it by them.
It was how I got my Fla Gar off live food.

Best of luck