Swollen, pineconed Tiger Barb, aged 8 yrs, from old age or disease?

HI everyone, very quick background on this tiger barb, until recently I had a 20-gal brackish water tank, home to a green-spotted puffer. I bred snails for the puffer in an additional 5-gallon freshwater tank. The tiger barb was the only fish in this smaller tank, and amazingly seemed to thrive in the overloaded environment of the snail tank. He is over 8 years old, which I imagine is quite old for this species, though I don't really know. When my puffer passed away from old age recently, I decided to stop keeping that kind of fish and closed down the big tank. Since I no longer needed the snails, I went out and got a new 5.5gal tank, set it up and let it run for 24 hours, then transferred the tiger barb into it. All filter components needed to be new to prevent transfer of snails and/or their eggs. I threw out the old tank. I knew such a fast transfer would be stressful to the barb, but we were leaving on a week road trip among other things, so I fast-tracked things. It is possible I did not have enough bacteria primer and that the water quality wasn't totally up to par, but as I said this fish has lived for years in a high-nitrate/ammonia environment so I was hoping he'd be okay.

For the first couple weeks he seemed fine, but when we returned from our trip last week (I had put a vacation pyramid feeder in the tank while we were gone) his belly was swollen. I took the pyramid out and resumed his normal flake food, but over the past week he has worsened. He is much paler than usual, very swollen and his scales have pineconed with visible blood underneath them :/ I realize this is probably a combo of his age plus the tank not being fully cycled when I put him in there. If this is dropsy (which I have no prior experience with, my puffer never developed any kind of illnesses), I know at this stage I'm probably going to lose the barb. I've tried feeding him some pea, but he doesn't seem very interested in food. Otherwise though he is alert and swimming actively around the tank. He's not acting like anything is wrong, but he looks terrible.

If I lose him, is there any reason to assume there's some kind of contamination in the tank, or could his be because of his age and/or water quality? What steps would I take to make it safe for new freshwater fish? I have not yet tested levels in the tank, I was planning on doing that tonight.

I've kept fish for many years, but my puffers were always very healthy so I'm not quite sure what to do. Advice is appreciated!

 

It sounds like dropsy which cold have been brought on by the uncycled tank (and the pyramid feeder may have increased the ammonia/nitrite even more while you were gone). How high was the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate in the snail tank he lived in and what are they now? How often are you doing water changes? If the fish passes I would thoroughly clean the tank before cycling it (I suggest fishless) for more fish.

 

Yes, I'm really regretting not taking more time to have cycled the tank properly, a very elementary mistake and there really is no excuse for it other than I have a million other things going on (sigh). But anyway, the last time I tested the snail tank the nitrates were literally off the scale (with my testing kit the highest is red, and it was very red), I was able to keep the ammonia mostly under wraps with a bag of the white ammonia absorber in the filter, but it was always on the higher side. I had to clean my puffer's tank every two weeks and I would do a 25% change on the snail tank at the same time. I would change out the carbon and ammonia bags each month, but would thoroughly rinse them at the in-between cleaning and vacuumed the gravel as much as I could each time (it would literally be black with snail waste, it was quite gross). I have not yet tested the levels in this new tank, nor have I done a water change since the tank is still very new; yesterday I went to Petsmart and got a bottle of the bacteria formula you use for establishing new tanks, which is also supposed to act as a nitrate/ammonia binder, and poured that in there.

I will do a 25% change tonight if the barb is still hanging in there and test levels, and yes definitely do a thorough clean and cycle if he doesn't make it :/ Poor guy, I just looked up though that barbs live 4-6 yrs if properly cared for and this one is well over that (8+). He even survived a snail dieoff a few years ago due to inadequate filtration (it was one of those designer tanks with the filter up in the lid. After that incident I switched to the standard AquaClear hang-off-the-back filter. Made a HUGE difference.). Maybe he just couldn't do it this time, he's not a young fish anymore.

 

Well he seemed slightly improved when I got home, it looked like he'd been able to relieve his constipation somewhat, so maybe he did eat some of the pea I gave him yesterday. He still doesn't act like anything is wrong; he is alert, upright and swimming around normally. I did a water change last night and fed him some more pea this morning. Unfortunately my water test kit is for saltwater (since I had a brackish tank) and did not include freshwater cards, so I'll have to pick up a separate kit before I can test the levels. I guess time will tell whether the barb will recover or not, given his age though the odds probably aren't great.

 

For anyone who comes across this thread later, the barb finally passed away overnight, I found him dead this morning. Over the past couple weeks he improved, then got worse again, then improved, but finally he did succumb. He was extremely old for his species, and I think he just couldn't handle the change in tank environment.