something's wrong, female bitaeniata

[natoufly]

Hi everyone,
I'm worried about the behaviour of my female A.bitaeniata
this morning I can't see her and as she's been parading around a lot for the last few days with changes in color, I thought she'd found a place to lay eggs.
but this afternoon I can see her coming out again, I take the opportunity to give her something to eat but she won't accept anything. Which isn't normal because she's always throwing herself at food.

then I find her behavior apathetic, she seems disoriented, swims slowly, bumps gently.
her fins are wide apart and her color is good, for the moment she's keeping her balance and breathing normally,

there has been no change in the aquarium, the last water change was on sunday.
yesterday she ate well and the male is very calm with her.

aquarium parameters 27°, kh=1, 30 ppm, ph 6.5

I've turned the light down to minimum, but I don't know if there's anything else I can do?

 

[natoufly]

 

[natoufly]

it seems to be getting worse, it's staying on the surface and now seems to be having trouble keeping its balance.

I'm not getting my hopes up...

I think it's terrible to lose a fish, especially when it's wild and has never been able to reproduce, it's a waste !!!

I only buy wild fish if I'm almost sure I can reproduce them, so that makes sense. And when something like that happens, it really makes me feel guilty.

I've read about sudden death syndrome in apisto, so I guess that's it...

 

[natoufly]

update: in the space of 2 hours, she's struggling to hold on. she's completely losing her balance. there's no point in being naive, we might as well put her out of her misery. i'm going to euthanize her with clove essential oil.

 

[natoufly]

she died before i could euthanize her.

i autopsied her out of curiosity, nothing caught my attention.
her ovaries were quite pink.

 

[MacZ]

I've read about sudden death syndrome in apisto, so I guess that's it...

Yeah, sounds a lot like it, though the heavy breathing was missing. Rest adds up.
Sorry for the loss, it was a nice specimen.