Need Help With My Female Convict Fish

[babygirl19]

hi i recently got a new tropical fish tank and 2 convict fish came with it a male and female and when we got the tank the man who sold it to us said they havent long had 600 babys , we set up our new tank put he 2 fish init started out fine but for last couple of days the female has been acting wierd she has got a swo;;en stomach she breathing a little bit heavier thank usaul and she not really swimming shes just hovering in one spot can any help me.............

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum Babygirl.
When you say you recently got a tank, I am assuming that you did not get advice on how to establish the ammonia processing bacterial colony in the tank's filter before starting to keep fish in the tank. It is not an unusual situation for us here so I keep a link in my signature area to a thread on doing a fish-in cycle. As a first aid measure, I would do at least an 80% water change on that tank, of course using a decent dechlorinator and a rough temperature match with the water in the tank. Don't forget to unplug the heater and filter while they are uncovered, otherwise they are likely to fail on you. If your fish quickly look better after the water change, the guess was right and you need to do daily 50% water changes until you can get that test kit, see below.

If you can get them, buy a test kit that lets you test both ammonia and nitrites at least. Many of us use the API master test kit because it is reasonably priced and gives fairly trustworthy results. Paper test strips are worse than none at all, they are misleading.