ConvictCaper

I've got three female cherry barbs in a 40-gallon tank, along with two dwarf gouramis, a CAE, a penguin tetra, three neons, and 6 rasboras. I've recently lost the three male cherry barbs, one probably to ICH, and a neon, also to ich. I was medicating with the blue stuff for about 12 days, and now all traces of ich seem gone.

Tank is cycled, water changes are regular, pH is high, water hard, temperature about 83.

My question is about how cherry barbs "hang out", because the ones I have seem to swim in an odd way. I'm wondering if they're about to die, too, or if cherries just swim strange sometimes. They seem to spend a lot of time head angled downward and flicking their tails in a sort of jittery way as they tread water. Has anyone else noticed this behaviour?

CC

agabr123

it's possible that they have a swim bladder disorder, do they have trouble getting to the bottom of the tank?

Barbrella

No, that's not normal behavior. Cherry barbs should be very active, usually racing around the tank with each other.

ConvictCaper

I thought about swim bladder problems, but they are often sitting on the bottom of the tank. I'm not sure what's going on. A lot of moping sort of behaviour. It's possible they got bloated when my 4-year-old dumped in a lot of food the other day. I tried a one-day fast for everyone, and have since been holding the flake food under water before releasing so it sinks rather than floats.

There is also still a bit of ich in the tank, which I only noticed after flushing out a neon from some foliage and realising it was still infected. Treatment of that continues.

I'll just keep an eye on them. One acts normal, and the other two tend to hide somewhere at the bottom: under a shelf made by the driftwood, between the glass and a plant. There doesn't seem to be a lot of eating going on.

Wouldn't be something simple like too few of them, so they feel nervous, would it? I just lost three males over the last few weeks and am down to only three cherries.

Kat.

agabr123

it could be from not having a full school.

what are you using to treat the ich?