Fish Injured, Swimming Weakly

OceanTeacher · Oct 18, 2018

Today, one of my favorite fish was caught by the intake of the protein skimmer. When I found him, it looked like the suction of the intake had caught his tail fin. I turned off the protein skimmer, and he swam away, but he is swimming weakly, and being pushed to the top and bottom of the tank, half floating. I'm really worried about him, but I don't know what to do. Is there anything I can do to help him recover? Will he be okay?

nautical_nathaniel · Oct 18, 2018

I would setup a hospital tank and place this fish in it to recover. You will want to use filtration that is easy on the fish, so something that provides very little flow so it can recover. Feed it vitamin enriched foods or any frozen food treated with selcon, selco booster, or any other vitamin/amino supplement for fish.

Provide it some pipe pvc pipe fittings or something to hide in so it doesn't get stressed out. You also don't necessarily have to light the tank, but keep a close eye on parameters and do water changes on a regular basis to keep ammonia from becoming an issue.

OceanTeacher · Oct 18, 2018

Okay. How big should the hospital tank be? I have a 3L plastic tank I've never used, but that seems very small. I could buy a larger one from the fish store.
Should I fill the hospital tank with water from the main tank, or freshly-made saltwater?

nautical_nathaniel · Oct 18, 2018

OceanTeacher said:
Okay. How big should the hospital tank be? I have a 3L plastic tank I've never used, but that seems very small. I could buy a larger one from the fish store.
Should I fill the hospital tank with water from the main tank, or freshly-made saltwater?

First-off, what kind of fish are we talking about? I forgot to ask in my previous post.

I would use a 50/50 mix of tank and freshly mixed saltwater but using all freshly mixed saltwater wouldn't hurt as long as the Salinity matches what your fish is currently in.