Female Swordtail Ill Or Not?

[Alexojus]

Hello everyone,
I am going to describe my tank first!
-64 litres tank with a Interpet PF2 filter cycled for about 4 months now.
-Water temperature 25 degree celcius.
-No plants. Few decorations and plastic plants.
-Fish: 3 albino catfish, 3 guppy male and 4 females, 2 swordtail koi male and female, about 25 guppy fry (5 new today)and finally, with lots of hesitation, an addition yesterday of 3 small Otocinclus to help reduce the amount of brown algae (I know that my tank is overstock now, but I am about to start cycling a second 94 litres tank to separate my female and male guppies! ). I have noticed that my female swordtail is staying longer than normal in the bottom of the tank without moving one bit! I immediately checked again my water for ammonia as I know my tank is overstocked and I read 0.25ppm which I reduce straight by a 30% water change and ammonia remover. Other readings like Nitrite and Nitrate are fine. What is confusing is after a while standing at the bottom, she starts to swim normally again. She doesn't have any spot or anything special on her body. Now, as I am looking at her, she seems to reverse to swim sideways a bit crazy and swim normally again. My question is whether the behaviour could be normal or is she developing a disease? And if so, can I do something to help? I have never seen her doing that before so I am a bit confused!! Thanks for helping.

 

[fish48]

hi Alexojus its not normal for a swordtail to swim sideways

post in tropical emergency forum for more info

 

[hughessomefish]

Hello everyone,
I am going to describe my tank first!
-64 litres tank with a Interpet PF2 filter cycled for about 4 months now.
-Water temperature 25 degree celcius.
-No plants. Few decorations and plastic plants.
-Fish: 3 albino catfish, 3 guppy male and 4 females, 2 swordtail koi male and female, about 25 guppy fry (5 new today)and finally, with lots of hesitation, an addition yesterday of 3 small Otocinclus to help reduce the amount of brown algae (I know that my tank is overstock now, but I am about to start cycling a second 94 litres tank to separate my female and male guppies! ). I have noticed that my female swordtail is staying longer than normal in the bottom of the tank without moving one bit! I immediately checked again my water for ammonia as I know my tank is overstocked and I read 0.25ppm which I reduce straight by a 30% water change and ammonia remover. Other readings like Nitrite and Nitrate are fine. What is confusing is after a while standing at the bottom, she starts to swim normally again. She doesn't have any spot or anything special on her body. Now, as I am looking at her, she seems to reverse to swim sideways a bit crazy and swim normally again. My question is whether the behaviour could be normal or is she developing a disease? And if so, can I do something to help? I have never seen her doing that before so I am a bit confused!! Thanks for helping.

As fish48 said this is not normal or heathy for the fish, so do post in the tropical emergency section.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

She sounds like she has a Swimbladder Disorder. Could be internal bacterial or caused by the ammonia problems in the tank. I would advise doing daily water changes (Ammonia & NitrItes should always be 0, with a NitrAte reading between 1 & 40) and treating the tank with Interpet Swimbladder Treatment no.13 while feeding her a more veg based diet (cut back on the fish flakes, introduce a bit of algae wafer etc as constipation can worsen or cause swimbladder disorders) .

Other than that, i would also advise that you rebalance your gender ratios with the guppys & swordtails- guppys should be 2-3females per male while swordtails should be 2-3females per male also (but i don't recommend you get anymore male swordtails as they can be quite aggressive towards one another even with very high numbers of females between them). Due to the water quality issues & recent addition of fry, the best course of action would be to reduce the amount of male fish in the tank rather than just buy females for them all as that would make the tank very overstocked.

 

[OldMan47]

I am not ready to join Alexis-Phoenix by blaming swim bladder issues. It is almost trite to do so. Instead I would suggest, as others have already done, that this is best addressed in the tropical emergencies sections.

 

[AstonN24vantage]

unshelled peas would also help to be fed (if she has swim bladder or not)

 

[fish48]

peas will do nothing for the fish if any foods gonna help live food will be far better.