Firstly, Hi to everyone on the site!
We bought 2 axies on friday - our first ones, and we've been having some big problems with one of them.
Both appeared fine (to the untrained eye) in the store, and had been there for at least a couple of weeks before we bought them.
On transporting them home, one (male) was fairly active in the bag, and the other (female) less so.
When we got them home and put them into their new tank the same active one (male) was still nice and active and started feeding the same day. The other one (female) did not, all she did was sit there flicking her gills very regularly.
She has no obvious red colour in her gills at all, they seemed fluffy, but were exactly the same colour as the rest of her body (golden albino)
Today she has been very unhappy. Unable to move very well, still flicking her gills and falling about as she walked, even laying on her side for prolonged periods. I thought she had died on a couple of occasions, but she eventually started moving again just as I was getting ready to get her out.
I am an experienced fish keeper and used a mature filter, keeping any cycle to a minimum (just a tiny amount of ammonia and nitrite have registered due to the different composition of the poo and they have already dropped back to 0) Nitrate is about 50ppm (30 - 40ppm out of the tap)
The tank temporature is sitting at around 23.5C, but we have lowered this now to nearer 19C - 20C
Both axies are about 6" long and on fairly course sand.
The male is still fine, feeding happily and being generally active.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
We bought 2 axies on friday - our first ones, and we've been having some big problems with one of them.
Both appeared fine (to the untrained eye) in the store, and had been there for at least a couple of weeks before we bought them.
On transporting them home, one (male) was fairly active in the bag, and the other (female) less so.
When we got them home and put them into their new tank the same active one (male) was still nice and active and started feeding the same day. The other one (female) did not, all she did was sit there flicking her gills very regularly.
She has no obvious red colour in her gills at all, they seemed fluffy, but were exactly the same colour as the rest of her body (golden albino)
Today she has been very unhappy. Unable to move very well, still flicking her gills and falling about as she walked, even laying on her side for prolonged periods. I thought she had died on a couple of occasions, but she eventually started moving again just as I was getting ready to get her out.
I am an experienced fish keeper and used a mature filter, keeping any cycle to a minimum (just a tiny amount of ammonia and nitrite have registered due to the different composition of the poo and they have already dropped back to 0) Nitrate is about 50ppm (30 - 40ppm out of the tap)
The tank temporature is sitting at around 23.5C, but we have lowered this now to nearer 19C - 20C
Both axies are about 6" long and on fairly course sand.
The male is still fine, feeding happily and being generally active.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!