Circle of life
Our tropical fish tank, currently overpopulated because our cherry barbs had babies, used to have 3 zebra danios. Now we have none. One of them seemed became ill awhile ago, developing a kink in it's back that screwed up it's ability to swim in a straight line. But it didn't die, so after giving up on figuring out what was wrong, we figured he would just be screwy. He lasted like that for a year before just disappearing. Probably finally died and got scavenged by the plecos before I ever noticed. Another one had dropsy back in December. Dropsy is a condition with many possible causes - you could have bad water. Your fish could have internal parasites. Or your fish could have liver failure. I gave the stupid dropsy fish a salt bath, which seemed to improve his condition a bit but then he bloated up again. I was going to give him another but accidentally dropped him on the floor while trying to get him out of the net into the bath. So that was that. 1 danio left. It didn't get sick until this month, also having dropsy. The tank was due for a water change at the time, so I did one, vacuuming the gravel and all. Gave them a new air wand for more bubbles and took out one of the pieces of driftwood to make room for more water. After the change the danio seemed to get a little better, but it didn't last, started bloating up again anyway. I put in all the assorted medicines I have, but they never made a difference. Tonight I decided to give it a salt bath too, since that was the only thing that seemed to help. The levels of ammonia and nitrites in the tank are so low as to be undetectable by my tests, and nitrates are at 10 ppm, which is well within the tolerable range. Despite putting in pH UP every night for the past week I can't seem to get the pH to 7 (the ideal for a community tank) but it's holding steady at 6. And steady is acceptable too.
Anyway fish went into the bath. Responded by acting totally chill. Didn't dart around or gasp at the surface or try to jump out. I figured it must actually feel good, maybe the salty water starts drawing out the excess water in it's body right away, even if there's no immediate visible difference. So I left it for a bit went to help with dinner prep, checked on it every now and then. It was fine, fine, fine. Finish cooking, check the fish (still fine) and eat dinner. Go get the fish to put it back. Fish is dead.
Stupid fish.
I'm inclined to believe that our danios were all about the same age and maybe they were just old, suffering liver failure as a result of that, since all the other fish are healthy and the water conditions are great. That fish was a dick anyway, always chasing the others around. It's now buried beneath the plum tree we planted out front, because fish make great fertilizer.
If that tree looks familiar it's because it's been in our back yard since we moved in back in 2009. Our 1st landlord left it behind and our new landlord thought it would be totally fine if we planted it. So Nate dug a giant hole:
And we carefully got it out of it's pot and got it in the ground. So far it seems to be doing quite well.
Anyway fish went into the bath. Responded by acting totally chill. Didn't dart around or gasp at the surface or try to jump out. I figured it must actually feel good, maybe the salty water starts drawing out the excess water in it's body right away, even if there's no immediate visible difference. So I left it for a bit went to help with dinner prep, checked on it every now and then. It was fine, fine, fine. Finish cooking, check the fish (still fine) and eat dinner. Go get the fish to put it back. Fish is dead.
Stupid fish.
I'm inclined to believe that our danios were all about the same age and maybe they were just old, suffering liver failure as a result of that, since all the other fish are healthy and the water conditions are great. That fish was a dick anyway, always chasing the others around. It's now buried beneath the plum tree we planted out front, because fish make great fertilizer.
If that tree looks familiar it's because it's been in our back yard since we moved in back in 2009. Our 1st landlord left it behind and our new landlord thought it would be totally fine if we planted it. So Nate dug a giant hole:
And we carefully got it out of it's pot and got it in the ground. So far it seems to be doing quite well.