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Illness/Sickness: Very bad floating, help!

hacelepues

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This morning I noticed my leucistic, Bowie, was having a very hard time staying down. If he wasn't under something, his tail would go straight up and he'd start floating vertically (tail up, head down).
He tends to float a bit whenever he has to poo, but I've never seen him like this before. There is no gravel in my tank, or anything else they could swallow, really. I fed him yesterday afternoon.

I figured it would pass as soon as he pooed, and went to class, but when I came back two hours later he was still struggling.

I've put him in a tupperware container with just enough water to cover him so his feet can touch the floor, and am floating that in the tank. I'd like to put him in the fridge but I share a house with 8 people so there's no room, so I'm changing out ice bottles instead. He's also scraped himself a bit because he was swimming violently around the tank trying to stay down.

I'm very worried about him! Does anyone have any insight or advice?
 

iSuzie

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maybe keep him wrapped up in a towel like when fridgeing and put him in a cupboard that doesn't get used much, if there's that many people in your house you prob don't want them to be scaring him to much while he is sick, sounds like he has got a bigger than usual air bubble/gas from feeding, did you feed him anything new? something he may not of been used to? your doing all the right things with the water level and ice bottles it sounds like you can just pretty much make your own fridgeing process in the cupboard if you can keep it cold enough. how bad is his scratches? and what's the temp of the main tank? because now when you do transfer him back, if the scratches are not all headed he may get fungus from going back to a higher temp than in his cupboard/fridgeing. good luck and i hope he gets better soon :love:
 

hacelepues

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maybe keep him wrapped up in a towel like when fridgeing and put him in a cupboard that doesn't get used much, if there's that many people in your house you prob don't want them to be scaring him to much while he is sick, sounds like he has got a bigger than usual air bubble/gas from feeding, did you feed him anything new? something he may not of been used to? your doing all the right things with the water level and ice bottles it sounds like you can just pretty much make your own fridgeing process in the cupboard if you can keep it cold enough. how bad is his scratches? and what's the temp of the main tank? because now when you do transfer him back, if the scratches are not all headed he may get fungus from going back to a higher temp than in his cupboard/fridgeing. good luck and i hope he gets better soon :love:

Well, first off, he pooped finally! It was HUGE. It looked like it would be painful to pass, poor thing :( A lot of sand appeared in the bottom of the container I'm keeping him in. It's extra weird because the sand in my tank is a mix of black and white, and all the sand he pooed out was only black.
He ate pellets yesterday, just like his tank mate. I was gone for the weekend however so they went 3 days without food instead of their usual one. I did this a month ago without issue so I dunno.

He's still floating though so I'm going to leave him in and see if he poos some more. The scratches don't look too bad, shallow and a little red. I've decided just to keep the tupperware floating in the tank. I can guarantee that he won't be disturbed there and there won't be any temp shock. (which is never above 20 C, by the way).

Thanks for the feedback! I hope he stops being floaty soon. My poor poor Bowie monster :(

EDIT: I cleaned up and did a water change after his poop. Just FYI
 

iSuzie

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good!! the poo is a good sign at least something passed tho, there may be more to come so hopefully that passes too. im really not sure what else to recommend =/ just keep doing the best you can, after all that's all you can do when things like this happen =/
 
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