male A. Agasizzi sick and female panduro guarding fry.

[wolf13]

My male double red a. Agasizzi was acting a little off last night right before lights out, wasn't showing his usual gold color, just his subdued colors, but was eating. today, i was looking at my tank when the lights came on and didn't see him, the dominant female came to meet me, and both she and the sub female were showing nice color, but the male didn't come to great me which was an immediate alarm. looking for him, i find him nearly black and headstanding and flopping around. I rushed him to the qt tank wheres he's been flopping around for a while now. he seems mostly to have his nose to the ground and spinning in circles. I know his odds aren't good, but if theres any suggestions I'd like to hear. He's still alive, been about 8 hours since i moved him to the qt. He's weak, and flopping around, but is also aware.

I've had him just under a month, he came in and i thought acclimated fine. the two other agasizzi and both panduros seem fine. he was showing great color most of the time and eating well. tank is well planted, massive amounts of hiding spots. no ammonia or nitrite and has been running for about 8 months. food is a varity including flake, pellet, shrimp pellet, krill, baby brine, blood worms, daphnea. i feed 1-2 (small feedings) times a day with 1-2 days a week of no feeding, and do a weekely 50% water change.

After I pulled him out, i did a water change in the tank since it was due today anyway. tonight I was looking in and I find the Panduro's are guarding fry! I vacumed along there dammit, but looks to be about 8 of them still. I have harder water even with peat, oak leaves and driftwood so never expected to get a viable spawn without going with RO. Man, what a roller coaster.

 

[Zack Wilson]

Man, that's a bummer. I wish I could offer some advice to bring the male back, but I've been the victim of this sort of thing more than once too. Doesn't seem to be anything you can do, and they tend to crash pretty quickly. Not sure if it's neurological or the result of some internal infection or maybe their individual biological ticker is up, but by the time they are showing symptoms, you can be pretty sure they're already crashing and are beyond help.

It's always seemed pretty random to me when it happens, though I seem to find some correlation to when they spawn, so I've taken to calling it "salmon syndrome", but I couldn't tell you more, just never turned it around. Happens too fast to treat anyway.

 

[Mike Wise]

I've had the same experience as Zack. I've never been able to save a fish in this condition. Hopefully it is not contagious (it probably is NOT). This is why I ALWAYS isolate/quarantine all my fish for at least 6 - 8 weeks now - even if they appear healthy.

 

[wolf13]

Normally, I qt on arrival, in this case though, I made the call to go into the main tank since my QT is only 10g, not enough for much more then a single apsito I was afraid.

He was actually swimming a little better last night when I checked in on him, and this morning he was sleeping and looking if anything a little better. Not going to hold out much hope though. I also added a small dose of melafix and covered the qt tank to reduce stress. I was afraid it was the diet i was feeding or something, so hearing it might be neurological or something is a little relief.