Swordtail Acting Erratically

[confusion]

In what appears to be my continued quest to wipe out all swordtails, I appear to have another sick one that I need some help diagnosing.

It's a black male swordtail. No signs of disease other than behavioral. He mostly hides under a rock fixture in the tank. He does come out sometimes, particularly to eat. Tonight when he came out, he was darting around, periodically flashing on the rocks or nearby fish. Then he stops, swims around calmly for a minute and goes back to hiding.

He's in a 10G cycled QT with 2 otos, 2 black mollies, and 1 female swordtail.

The ammonia is 0, nitrites 0, and nitrates around 40.

Any ideas on what could be wrong?

 

[millym]

your nitrates are a little high id do some little water changes to try & get them down a bit. your swordie may have some parasite or something like gill flukes that you cant see that is bothering him. maybe the high nitrates it irritating for him (sorry im not really sure on that one)
hopefully someone else will come along with better ideas on how to help soon.

 

[WILDER]

Check the gills first to see if they are red and inflamed or have excess mucas on them, if no signs of whitespot or a dusting, you could be dealing skin flukes.

Darting
Water quality problems, skin parasites, drug side effects, stray voltage in the tank
What your tap nitrate that should tell you if you can get it any lower, 40 not bad, some of us can never get it below that if you have a tap nitrate reading.

 

[confusion]

40 is the highest I've seen it. It's normally quite a bit lower. The plants tend to keep it pretty low. I have noticed that there's a lot of particulate in the water - not sure if it's fish poop, plant matter or what. I have a 150GPH filter on a 10G tank, which should equate to a pretty clean tank. The other fish seem unaffected by whatever the problem is.

I'm going to try a course of 50% water changes to reduce the particulate and anything else that might be irritating them. I have looked pretty close at the gills, but can't see anything wrong.

He also does shake his head side to side as if he's swimming in place. Sometimes, I see his head jerk suddenly from side to side, almost like it's some kind of neurological problem. I'm sure that's a sign of something bad - just not sure what.

He also seems to be completely uninterested in the female swordtail. I have had others before (before they died on me, anyhow) that were nearly always trying to mate with the females.

 

[WILDER]

Just take a look here.
http/article.dphnet.com/cat-02/flukes1.shtml

 

[confusion]

When I got home last night, he was looking a lot better - being social and swiming around. My wife said that he did have a few freakout episodes throughout the day, dashing around, flashing, etc, but he didn't do any of that while I watched.

I looked pretty closely at his gills. His left gill looks red, but nothing sticking out, etc.

I did back to back 50% PWCs and he seems pretty content - no hiding or darting. This morning he wasn't darting or flashing either, and he had been doing it most in the morning for the past few days, so maybe it was really a water quality problem. My filstar xp3 is coming today for my 55G. I'm thinking about hooking it up to this 10G for a bit to see if that makes a difference for him.

 

[WILDER]

If water quality is good and the gill is red i would say gill flukes with the fish flashing and darting around.


http/article.dphnet.com/cat-02/flukes.shtml