Alberta_Bound

Hello everyone. I'm new so i'll give a brief history. We've had a 20 gal tank going for nearly a year now and have mostly livebearers 5 mollies, 6 Guppies, 2 Beunos Aires Tetras (albino so they dont pick on anyone) 2 cory cats some ghost shrimp and snails. We have recently added ( last month) 1 angel ram and 3 Orange von Rio tetras which are half the size of our guppies. Right now we're pretty much at the limit for tank space. The last month has been good with no problems in the tank. We do 20% water changed once a week and out temperature and all of our water testing levels have stayed the same.

Now for our problem, I checked on the tank this morning and saw that our angel ram couldn't seem to swim properly she flounders and when she works really hard she can move but she's still tilted sideways and it's alot of work. She's just leaning on anything close to her. She hasn't been eating much for that last few days and now along with not being able to swim she's looks like she's gasping for air. Her gills are red underneath and the area above the mouth looks red. Her abdomen doesn't look swollen so I don't know if she constipated and if that's causing swim bladder disease or not.

I'm sorry that was such a long post but if you have any ideas or thoughts please let me know.

Thanks

Shawnie

welcome to fishlore!!!
im sorry its under these circumstances though
at this point, the tank is very overstocked and probably running wild for parimeters...I see you use test strips, which do not give accurate readings and probably giving you false hope..API makes a liquid master test kit which has everything you need, will do 100s of tests, and is super reliable.......the product stability (if you are still using it) is probably keeping the tank from properly cycling...its not a bacteria that is aquatic and will actually eat up the good bacteria needed to cycle a tank......so once you stop using that, the tank will go through a cycle like its suppose too...doing some daily water changes with your prime to keep the fish safe, will be a few weeks once you stop using stability....im not sure about the ram not caring for salt, but MOST fresh water fish dont require it and it acts more of an old school method....it irritates them and causes them to overproduce slime coat...so the stress from using salt, could also be a major issue...rams are super sensitive to different waters and if the test strips are telling you no ammonia/nitrites and there really is, that will cause all the symptoms you are getting from him which indicate to me, there is ammonia........I hope things look up!

peacemaker92

Welcome to Fishlore!

So sorry about your sick fish. Great info & advice from Shawnie. Hope everything gets better soon. Best of luck!