Upside down fishy...

[FishWife]

First thing I saw this morning was my purple tang looking REALLY sick. It was bobbing near the surface and turning belly up. For some reason that we don't yet understand, amonia was OFF the charts. They are in a two tank holding set-up and in hyposalinity for ich, so no rock, but we had the skimmer on them and were siphoning. I think that in the last two days, after we got the salinity down via water changes, we just siphoned and forgot amonia. :( Daily water changes will now commence for the duration, and we are hoping to bring our new tank on line by next weekend, if all goes well (phew!) which will mean that we can move corals and inverts in there at least, even though the fish still have a few weeks to go before they are safe.

 

ANYWAYS,

 

We spent four hours redoing all the water this morning, moving fish from tanks to buckets to tanks again, acclimating each time, etc. In the end the purple tang can swim for a bit right side up and has even begun eating. My question is this: has ANYONE ever had a fish live after it had started going belly up, or is this fishy done for, do you think?

[dhoch]

I wouldn't say he's done for, I mean he's still alive right now correct?

 

I'm guessing though, like smoking, you took some time off his life.

 

Dave

[davelin315]

Personally, I have yet to have a fish survive something like that. Good luck, though, and be careful with the daily water changes that you match the water chemistry. Aeration and carbon will help you out a bit in keeping the system clean.