fish not eating after water change.

[danielratti]

I did my usual weekly water change today and took out around 30% of the water as usual and I noticed someone my fish acting weird after not breathing heavy or laying at the bottom so I let things settle down for  a bit and 2 fish are not eating now. they seem to be swimming around just fine not marks on them either. My test results are good so im not too sure what it could be or if it is anything to worry about really.

[Ron]

I'd consider it something to worry about.

How old are the test kits your using? IIRC, they typically have an expiration date and aren't considered reliable beyond it.

Are you using well water or on city water?

Are their gills exceptionally red?

[danielratti]

Gills look good city water is what I use and my test kit is like 5 months old.I can test it at work also

[Marty]

Try moving them to a different tank (that you didn't do a water change on). If they bounce back quickly, it's likely a contaminant.

[danielratti]

I think its weird its only 2 fish the others eat like pigs I'm not seeing any signs of bloat but will try moving them

[Ron]

If it's only 2 fish out of an entire group, it's probably nothing directly related to the water change.

Since you mentioned you have city water, I noticed a couple times when on it the water department would accidentally have spikes on occasion in the nitrite level, amount of chlorine, etc. IIRC, when I was in Ann Arbor I was able to check their website to get statistic after the fact ... never knew before it'd already happened though obviously. When I'd do water changes I'd always use more water conditioner than necessary as a precaution.

I suspect it's aggression related. If you watch the tank long enough, you might be able to confirm it. I also have always noticed that my cichlids get a little more rowdy after water changes, so perhaps that's why it correlates to a water change in your case as well.

[danielratti]

Right I'm going to just play it safe or atleast try to. I don't wanna treat for bloat with metro but might try adding epsome salt. Its a yellow blaze and a flame tail that are acting funny. Hopefully they snap out of it I feel as I would have a hell of a time looking for a new flame tail for a decent price yellow blaze on the other hand I have like 6 males at work.

[Marty]

Fish, like all animals, have an immune system.  Some are stronger than others.  I have had this happen to me on more than one occasion, and determined it was water quality related after ruling out every other cause.

As Ron said, it's less likely to be a water quality issue if only a couple of fish are effected, but if you've ruled everything else out, try moving them (actually would make sense if aggression was the problem as well)

[danielratti]

Right ill look at it more when I get home I watched last night for 2 hours and neither were bothered but the yellow blaze would chase fish away from his rock so I dunno. Ill move them in to a growout tank.

[danielratti]

I'm kind of starting to think its bloat or maybe a parasite of some sorts. I added epsomsalt last night and this morning and plan to do a water change this evening and.doing a water chancre and maybe start using metro and keeping up on 25 to 50% water changes.

[danielratti]

So I started treating for bloat with salt and metro. Since I do not have the room for a qt tank I've just been treating the main tank. I took the tank up to 82 and doing a full dose of metro in the morning then a 50% change in the evening then treating it again full dose. I know it stays in the system for 8 hours at a time. Both fish seem very active so Im kind of confused. Ive never had success with bloat treatments so hopefully this one actually works.