Aging algae eater...

Hi, I am wondering what to do with my aging algae eater. I've had him for almost a year and he's getting pretty big. He doesn't come out much except at night and I know that's normal for them. I think he's a little traumatized though. When my fish had dropsy a couple of months ago, I removed him from the tank and then I put him back but he fought me tooth and nail both times. He's never been quite right since! He stays inside his little house most of the time unless he comes out at night but his coloring is really strange. He looks bruised up. His house is kinda small and I've seen him squash himself around in there so it wouldn't surprise me if he was bruised, if fish can get bruised??? I bought him a bigger house but he doesn't go in there much. I took a couple of pictures tonight while my water was low. I did a partial water change. He got all freaked out when we got too close to him, started jumping all around and stuff. When he finally stopped, his gills were flapping so fast, he looked out of breath and maybe he was but he was still doing it a little while later. I just hope someone will look at these pictures and tell me if they think something might be wrong with him, like he's bruised. He used to be an orangy color and now he's all funky looking. I don't want to get rid of him unless I can find him a better home if maybe say, he's getting too big for my tank. And I don't want him to continue to be traumatized... thanks.

 

That fish looks big. In your signature it says it is in a 10g? If so your tank is not large enough (unless your camera has an awesome zoom feature ) I would either move him to a larger tank, put larger caves/houses in, remove the smaller ones. (he'll use em eventually) Or try to find him a better home if you can't provide a larger tank.

But before I assume too much: what size tank, what size fish, what is in the tank with him/her?

 

Looks like he needs a bigger tank. If he's not already 11", they get to about that size and need 20 gallon or bigger tanks to get around in. You could try adding stress coat to his water as well as liquid vitamins like vitachem to help him.

 

yes, he's in a 10 gal with 1 platy and 2 mollies. I have moved my 20 or so fry to the smaller tank for the time being. I used Prime last night in the tank after I did a water change. I have been using that since I got it for preparing the smaller tank for the fry.

I am fixing to go to petco and will ask about the vitachem. hopefully my fish guy is there today. could anyone tell from the pictures how bruised up he looks? I don't know if fish can get bruised but his coloring is so splotchy if I just hope he doesn't have blood pooling up around those dark colored areas.

I hadn't planned on getting a bigger tank anytime soon. he never swims around except for at night. what other home could I get him?? I have the bigger house but I could look for an even bigger one. it's just one of those cave thingys. oh, and yes, I did have it zoomed in a little b/c he was at the bottom of the tank and I was taking the picture from the top but he is really big. the first picture isn't as zoomed in but you can tell he is really big. I got him when he was really small so he's grown a lot this past year.

 

Oh, my fish are all about 2 in long. They were a lot bigger than the guppys I had and I had gotten them small.

 

vitachem will have to be ordered from the DFS website. i'm not sure if petco has any liquid vitamins. it's hard to tell in the pics I think that he's bruised, but maybe i'm just not familiar enough with this fish.

 

Yeah, I'm afraid he is bruised up from the way he looks to me and I've seen him beat himself around his house and stuff. Poor thing...

 

a 20 gallon long or more would really help with that, he's probably bruised himself some in swimming around the small tank. :-\