In the past couple days I’ve noticed that Starscream has been spending a lot of time laying on his side on the bottom of his tank. This is very sudden and unusual behavior, normally he’s very active and constantly patrolling his tank. When he sees me he’ll still perk up and start swimming around but he always ends up back on the bottom or on some other floating decorations. Could this be a swim bladder issue? Since I noticed this a few days ago I’ve been fasting him, but I haven’t noticed any change, and he doesn’t look bloated to me. Should I be concerned?
10 gallon with filter and heater set to 80F, live plants, water parameters stable and healthy according to API master test kit, only tank mates are a nerite snail and 5 ghost shrimp who he leaves alone. I feed him Fluval bug bites
https://www.reddit.com/gallery/1rrxgu7
Posted by hatchetchunks
4 Comments
https://preview.redd.it/btlfjwl7inog1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=421948851b750c25ad7cd0a9b9a80771738fd667
PetePete does this often.. he’s fine, he eats and swims and chases shrimp and comes to see me, then often makes his way back to his leaf sandwich. Hopefully nothing to be concerned about!
Do they look like they’re gasping for air? If yes get a sponge filter/air stone in there (there’s not enough gas exchange.) seeing as you’ve been fasting, will he take food when you give it to him? …It could also just be boredom-
O-ooh you just added shrimp?… that’s more like hunting behavior- he is 100% stalking your shrimps. I’d keep feeding him small portions daily if you wanna keep having shrimp in that tank. 😂
Remove all the shrimp and see what happens. One thing is you never add any thing from the store to our tank. You should have a quarantine tank.