# Silver dollar with swim bladder problems / new cichlids



## Emory (Jul 27, 2008)

Hi everyone,
First, I want to tell you that I realize I didn't do things "by the book" here and that's probably why I'm having problems. Please limit your time spent telling me I'm an idiot, and try to help me solve the problems.

My system is a 55 gallon with two hang-on-tank filters (cheap walmart special and a small penguin bio-wheel), as well as a fluval 305. Tank was cycled years ago and large water changes are carried out regularly. Ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite are all fine. My intention is to have a south american style tank - some cichlids, silver dollars, and so on.

I have a decent-sized silver dollar that is having swim bladder issues - floating on the top of the tank, but when it tries to swim downwards it is able. The second it stops swimming, though, it pops to the top of the aquarium.

Here's the real problem - I have a multitude of issues going on right now that may be contributing to the fish's condition. I'll try to list all of the stuff I feel MIGHT have had a chance to cause this:

- Another silver dollar died recently. It seemed malnourished. Perhaps some sort of digestive issue caused different symptoms in both fish? This was BEFORE the new additions

- Added new fish to the tank a few days ago (jack dempseys and convicts - yes, I realize there could be compatibility issues when they get larger.) Two of the three convicts have died, seemingly from fin/mouth rot. Third has rot but it's getting better. Currently treating with *melafix*

- Fed a variety of new foods yesterday. Bought a bunch of foods, since the silver dollars were eating a generic tropical flake and cichlids need more protein. Put in a little bit of bloodworms, tubifex, and cichlid pellets. The silver dollars ate some of all three of these. Perhaps a digestive issue related to eating so much protein when they are herbivores naturally?

- PH is low. Not sure exactly how low, the test strip I'm using shows yellow for 5.0 and it's yellow, so I'm worried it might be 5.0 or possibly lower.

- Not sure about hardness, there are lots of white deposits all over the filters and anywhere water splashes, which leads me to believe the water is hard, but I was under the impression that hard water would generally buffer pH to higher levels. Will pick up gh/kh test kits if needed, but haven't bothered with these for the most part in the past.

- Added aquarium salt. As part of the treatment for the fin rot, I added the recommended dosage of aquarium salt. I've never really bothered with this stuff before, but I was trying to prevent an outbreak of fin rot after introducing the new fish.

- There was recently a "boil water" warning from the county water treatment plant. They have since assured us the water is fine, but what do they know? I wasn't regularly testing my pH before this, so the low pH could possibly be a side effect of this whole thing.

I've had this silver dollar for a few years, so I'd really like to save it if at all possible. If anyone can provide any advice, I would appreciate it greatly. For the time being I've got him in a floating breeder tank to keep him away from the other fish, and have stopped feeding.


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## Emory (Jul 27, 2008)

An update - I just remembered I had a digital pH meter from my koi-keeping days, and decided to test both the tap and the tank water.

The tap tested around 7ish, and the tank around 3-4ish. I immediately started a large water change, as that's wayyy too acidic.

After the water change was mostly underway, I remembered that the meter needs to be calibrated. Turns out it was reading about 0.5 low, so I only have a rough idea what the "before" reading was. After the water change, things are a more respectable 5.5 - still on the low end but not catastrophic. I re-dosed with melafix and will do another water change tomorrow to try to slowly bring the pH up.

Heres my guess on the chain of events - my previous pH was probably fine (hadn't tested it in AGES), and then I brought home the new cichlids, which started dying off from mouth/fin rot. In an effort to save them and prevent infection of the new fish, I did a large water change and added melafix. The new water was probably hugely acidic from the recent water treatment plant failure, and that did some serious damage to the fish, leading to the silver dollar's issues. Since then, the pipes have been flushed out by morning showers and whatnot, and the water is back to normal, so it tested fine at the tap today.

I'm going to keep monitoring the pH with my newly rediscovered meter, and make sure nothing in the tank is lowering the pH.

While I'm monitoring things, I still welcome any advice on how to treat the silver dollar, and also would love to hear any ideas on things in the tank that could potentially be causing such a significant drop in pH - just in case there's something else wrong that I haven't figured out.


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