Leaflip Grouper (Soapfish) of 6 years acting SICK! *updated*

[shanker]

Ok guys, I have only had 2 fish die due to bad water and 1 fish jump out of my tank since first getting into a saltwater tank 6 years ago.

My Grouper, a Leaflip Grouper, was my FIRST fish, and he has been thru it all.

I did a water change on 5-11 of 20 gallons on my 58g Oceanic, I only do water changes about every 5-6 weeks and I only have 2 fish, both groupers, of which they only get fed once a week or so (2-3 shrimp each)

This has worked fine for me for 6 years.

Since my water change, my leaflip grouper is acting like he is having a hard time swimming and seems to be forcing water over his gills 3-4X more than normal. He almost acts as if the back half of him is paralized and only uses his pectoral fins to swim around with and he now sits on the bottom of my tank like a goby. The Craziest thing about it is that he is still eating, but not as much as normal.

I checked the salinity and it was a bit high, so I took out about 2 gallons of water and added 2 gallons of RO DI.

Tank Specs:
58 Gallon Oceanic
Americal Wet/Dry with 300gph submursible pump

I origionally set this tank up with the help of Greg from Bridgmans Aqua Life (In Waco) and have been living in Portland for 3 years no, and I didnt even have a problem when I xfered the fish in a 154 qt Igloo Cooler 250 miles!

Im going to be sooo depressed if this fish dies....if he does im going to throw my other grouper (a Rockhind thats about 7" long) in the drink at Packery Channel and start collecting the pieces for a larger tank.

-Patrick

[SABOB]

Please post current parameters,ammonia-nitrites-nitrates-salinity-temp-pH Knowing those numbers might help.

[shanker]

I dont own a water testing kit to be honest, I found out years ago when I first got started that I was taking a to micro-managed approach with my tank and it was not healthy because of it...

My temp is about 80 and my salinity is a lil high right now, thats all I know...


But here is what happened.....I just had my neighbor, his brother and his friend come over, they were all drunk as **** and one of them noticed my fish was "gilling" in his words (he does alot of fishing with live bait so knows what a fish that is suffocating in the bait wells looks like).

He told me that the fish was starving for air and to get it some air...

So since nothing changed other than a water change, I couldnt figure out for the life of me what could be different, but I finially figured it out...I had overfilled my tank and my wet/dry was only dripping water over about 2" of bio-balls and the rest were all submurged....so I drained about 4 gallons of water, added an air pump with a stone (from my live bait bucket that will keep shrimp for 12 hours) and Im going to see what happens now.....

I feel like such a retard :(


SABOB - cute dogs, I have 2 boxers myself.

[shanker]

OK guys, My fish seems to be acting better, he is actually swimming, although he is still gilling hard..

Here are my water tests that I got (all that i can test for)

pH : 8.8
Salinity : 1.025
Ammonia : less than .025

I cant test for Nitrates or Nitrites.

[hobogato]

your pH is a little high, but i would be more worried about the ammonia. it should be zero. i would do another 20% water change for starters.

[shanker]

oh, I almost forgot to mention that my pump is a rio 3100, a little big, but it works for me.

[shanker]

what are the chances, that my Rockhind tried to eat and hurt my leaflip?

The reason why I ask, is because on day on, I remember him swimming around as if he cannot move from his pectoral fins back right, well he still cant, and I picked him up today and I think his spine is broke.... :(

It makes me feel better knowing that Its not a water quality issue, but when I brought that rockhind home my wife told me to take it back :(

[hobogato]

what are the chances, that my Rockhind tried to eat and hurt my leaflip?




it is very possible, is it bigger than the leaf lip?

[Bill S]

If your salinity was "a little high", water holds less O2 the greater the salinity.

As Ace noted, any NH4 is bad.

[Joshua]

If you have a wet/dry with bio balls you should be getting plenty of air mixed just in the overflow tubes, even with a durso. This leads me to believe O2 is not your problem. How long did you mix the salt before doing the water change? I've had perfect luck just mixing for 10 minutes or so and doing it, but others have had serious problems unless they mix for longer periods of time. Perhaps this depends on the type of salt or whatever. That pH is pretty high though, which perhaps could be caused by not mixing that salt long enough. From what I understand a rapid change in pH can "burn" the fishes gills, which is why we acclimate of course, and this could be suffocating it or it could just be stressed. Also if those test kits are old, and it sounds like they are, I wouldn't trust them one way or the other.

[shanker]

Well, the reason why I ask, is because last night I handled my fish trying to force feed him and it feels as though his spine is broke, which means he either freaked out about something and hurt himself, or the Rockhind grouper which is 2.5 times his side tried to eat him and injured him.

[hobogato]

i would say it is a good possibility that the larger grouper will eat the smaller one - or at least try