Help! One of my fish is THROWING UP!

[volkl23]

So one of my cherry barbs is violently throwing up. I gave them some epsom salt a few hours ago (1/8 tsp per 5 gallons) to help with some constipation after I fed them.

I was watching them and saw a sudden burst of debris come out of a fish. I thought the epsom salt was working as it looked like diarrhea. I watched more carefully this time and noticed that she was throwing her food up pretty violently. I've never seen this before. This isn't the same as eating some food spitting it out and then eating it again. This was different since they were fed over 2 hours ago.

Any suggestions? The only thing I could think of is that I dosed some prazipro as a preventative measure (they seemed to be opening and closing their mouthes pretty frequently).

ammonia -0
nitrite - .5
Nitrate - 10

Tank is still cycling

 

[canucksfan1]

i think if u have .5 nitrite you should get on a water change cuz thats gettin pretty bad

 

[WeeNe858]

if your still cycling then i recommend you leave it alone.. its either finish the cycling and maybe lose the fish or try to save the fish and re cycle.. its best to move em outa the tank (if you have another established tank) or let it be sorry

 

[volkl23]

if your still cycling then i recommend you leave it alone.. its either finish the cycling and maybe lose the fish or try to save the fish and re cycle.. its best to move em outa the tank (if you have another established tank) or let it be sorry

so you think my fish is a goner?

 

[cohazard]

Vomiting fish is a new one to me, sorry to hear that your fish is going through that.

I agree with Weenee858... just let things be so that your bio filter establishes and hopefully your fish makes it.

You can do daily water changes to help the fish, but my guess is that the cycle get's prolonged that way (nitrifying bacteria feeds on amonia.... W/C removes amonia... bacteria has nothing to eat... so on so forth...).

Sounds like a silly question... what does the vomit look like? Is it possible there are parasites mixed in there?

I wish you and your fish the best

 

[ct-death]

If she doesn't do any WCs she will almost certainly loose the fish. The nitrItes are very toxic to fish!

The WC may slow the cycling process down ,but WC do NOT effect the actual bacteria directly. Yes it may reduce the Ammonia, but the fish and food are constantly building this back up.

I can only recommend that you do WCs to keep your ammonia and nitrItes under 0.25. Anything higher and at best you cause perminent damage to the fish which causes shortend life-spans or other complications, and at worse - death.

Yes, Cherry barbs are hardy, and yes cycling is very stressful and one should expect losses, ...but I would say they are stressed over the water conditions which is causing them to vomit up their food.

Do a 50% WC, wait at least 6 hours before refeeding, and see how they do.

Let us know how they do!

 

[Star_Rider]

If she doesn't do any WCs she will almost certainly loose the fish. The nitrItes are very toxic to fish!

The WC may slow the cycling process down ,but WC do NOT effect the actual bacteria directly. Yes it may reduce the Ammonia, but the fish and food are constantly building this back up.

I can only recommend that you do WCs to keep your ammonia and nitrItes under 0.25. Anything higher and at best you cause perminent damage to the fish which causes shortend life-spans or other complications, and at worse - death.

Yes, Cherry barbs are hardy, and yes cycling is very stressful and one should expect losses, ...but I would say they are stressed over the water conditions which is causing them to vomit up their food.

Do a 50% WC, wait at least 6 hours before refeeding, and see how they do.

Let us know how they do!

pretty good call..
yes the nitrites are high..so do the water change and test the water..at this point all you can do is try to stay on top of the nitrites.

nitrites will impair gill function(the ability for the gill to absorb O2) adding aquarium salts may help as they change the osmotic pressures/funtions..but the best hing is to do water changes.

 

[volkl23]

If she doesn't do any WCs she will almost certainly loose the fish. The nitrItes are very toxic to fish!

The WC may slow the cycling process down ,but WC do NOT effect the actual bacteria directly. Yes it may reduce the Ammonia, but the fish and food are constantly building this back up.

I can only recommend that you do WCs to keep your ammonia and nitrItes under 0.25. Anything higher and at best you cause perminent damage to the fish which causes shortend life-spans or other complications, and at worse - death.

Yes, Cherry barbs are hardy, and yes cycling is very stressful and one should expect losses, ...but I would say they are stressed over the water conditions which is causing them to vomit up their food.

Do a 50% WC, wait at least 6 hours before refeeding, and see how they do.

Let us know how they do!

See, I've been doing constant water changes for the past 9 weeks. I didn't know much about fish keeping so I bought a lot of fish. I currently do 50% PWC TWICE a day to keep the nitrites below the .25 everyone has been talking about. I've been doing this with no drop in nitrites.

In my other thread http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=105296

it seems people are split whether I should be doing so many water changes. Ah, very frustrating

 

[volkl23]

Vomiting fish is a new one to me, sorry to hear that your fish is going through that.

I agree with Weenee858... just let things be so that your bio filter establishes and hopefully your fish makes it.

You can do daily water changes to help the fish, but my guess is that the cycle get's prolonged that way (nitrifying bacteria feeds on amonia.... W/C removes amonia... bacteria has nothing to eat... so on so forth...).

Sounds like a silly question... what does the vomit look like? Is it possible there are parasites mixed in there?

I wish you and your fish the best

It literally looks like diahrrea coming out of the mouth. Quite disturbing. She did this 4-5 times. She was the only one doing it. They're all swimming normally (playing, etc..) like nothing ever happened now.

 

[ct-death]

I'm not sure how long you have been setup, but a cycle can easily take well over 2 months, but generally it is between 5-10 weeks depending on variables.

Just focus on 2 readings for now: Ammonia / NitrItes and keep them under 0.25.

If you are doing a lot of WCs (and sounds as if you are) I would chekc your testing methods (if using liguid shake both bottles before using them in the tube) and test you tap for nitrItes as well.

And yes, if you are well into your cycle you ammonia will easily read zero in a very short time. This is typical. 1st your ammonia's are spiking then they drop to zero and your nitrItes spike. finally both drop to zero and your nitrAtes begin to spike.

For fish safety just keep ammonia and nitrItes under 0.25 and you should be fine.

When you get nitrAtes keep these under 40ppm (20 is better), but thats a ways off yet, and your weekly maintenace should handle this anyways after the cycle is done.