# Zebra Danio with a bent body, breathing rapidly & sitting



## satu55555 (Apr 6, 2011)

I cannot think of what I should do about my female zebra danio is just sitting on the bottom of the tank (mostly on her belly, but a little bit of the time leaning on her fins, the latter being better). She takes some funny swim in circles. Could be because of her being bent. It seems as if she can't bend to the left (the outside of the bend), but needs to like forcefully flip herself that way. Then she swims around a little circle (diameter 10cm) to the right where she bends. She hasn't eaten for 3 days and she keeps breathing rapidly. In addition her body is bent and gills seem red. She has clamped fins. No stringy poo. And she's not flashing and rubbing herself, just the funny sudden swims. It seems as if she can't bend to the left (the outside of the bend), but needs to like forcefully flip herself that way. I don't see anything else on her. 

Here are a couple of photos of her 3 days ago:


















I've given Jungle Parasite Clear and we have Easy Life Excital blue green algae treatment going. Both were put in 2 days ago. A very knowledgeable lady at the shop said it's fine to put both at the same time. Parasite treatment will be renewed today and blue green algae treatment is going another 3 days.

Could she be constipated after 3 days? She's lost weight. She was overweight before. Or could she be egg bound and not able to release them? There's no spots or worms visually seeable on her. I didn 't think fish TB or dropsy would be the case either.

Could it be an internal bacterial infection? What can I do to help her?

Here are the details of the tank:

Tank size: 140 litres freshwater tank with 2 live plants that we've had for a year
Gravel bottom and we have some tank ornaments, but no new ones.

Water parametres:
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 15 (could be because of the treatments going on)
Ammonium: more 0 than 0.25
pH: 7.4

We've had the tank only for a year and no illnesses before now.
Water temperature: 25 degrees centigrades.

There are 7 fish in the tank:
3 Zebra Danios (1 girl and 2 boys) - had them for a year
2 Corydoras (both girls) - had them for a year
2 Dwarf Otos (a boy and a girl) - had them for 1/2 year

Feeding is frozen food in the morning either bloodworm or white mosquito larvae and mini sized pellets and flakes in the evening. Evening meal is more like a snack. In addition we have always seaweed, zucchini or cucumber for the otos, who seem to really love them. The seaweed has got stuck in the filter two times so that as I took about 5 days over 2 weeks to clean the tank, the filter was full of the stuff. I usually clean every 2 weeks. Last proper clean was 1.5 weeks ago with about 30% water change and another 15% water change 3 days ago. We use tap water (which in Finland is better than bottled water) and always put water conditioner. Gravel is vacuumed when doing water change.

Please, advise on what this could be. I've searched the internet for hours on a few days and cannot come up with more. Thank you.


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## Guppie luver (Feb 2, 2011)

Try doing water changes more often I do 20 evrey week and with a sick fish you want more offten.


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## satu55555 (Apr 6, 2011)

Thank you very much for your reply. I will indeed do more water changed from now on.

We've done a 25% water change yesterday and renewed the parasite treatment, which says it's also for body and gill flukes (Jungle's Parasite Clear). We put aquarium salt in the tank to ease gill functions and to kill parasites and increased the temperature to 28 degrees celcius. I also gave her a bath in Epsom salt to take care of any constipation. Her belly is still round, but right behind the roundness, it's started to get thinner, close to being a bit sunken. She's still breathing heavily. She has changed her behaviour and is now floating at the surface. Not moving her clamped fins much, only when she has to. Should I try internal bacteria medicine in case there's something I cannot see?

Thank you.


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## Guppie luver (Feb 2, 2011)

is she alone? If not please seperat her because she could be contaguos and maby she is just full of eggs?


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## satu55555 (Apr 6, 2011)

Thank you for your reply and help!!! We had to put her down yesterday. I spoke to someone who's specialised in fish and she said it really is the best thing because as I gave her the description of the symptoms, she said it really sounds like tuberculosis, belly full of fluids and bacterial infection. I had started to already wonder that the fish didn't look like she had much of a chance of recovery. She was just looking more and more sad. I also found out that they don't sell antibiotics for fish in Finland! Can you believe it! How are you supposed to medicate your fish properly? We made the decision to move her to "wild, blue rapids" in a humane way after doing a lot of research on the internet and speaking with the same lady.
Thank you again.


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## Romad (Jun 28, 2009)

Sorry to hear that you had to put your fish down  

It's not an easy thing to do but sometimes it is the best thing to do when your fish is suffering. And without knowing exactly what is wrong, it's almost impossible to get the proper medication.

RIP fishy.


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## Guppie luver (Feb 2, 2011)

O at least she/he is happy now and not suffering I'm so sorry


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## satu55555 (Apr 6, 2011)

Thank you. I'm very sad for her.


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