# Fish swimming vertically



## FriendsNotFood

I have a tiny little phoenix rasbora that just started swimming funny a day or so ago. Nothing changed in the tank... no new plants or new critters or new food. The fish is swimming like there's a weight attached to his tail. What do I do? Could this infect the other fish in the tank?


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## Geminiluna

Well, this will invite a bunch of questions about your parameters .... but look up "Bacterial Gill Disease" or "BGD" and see what you think.


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## FriendsNotFood

Haha I'm amused by the idea of trying to examine the gills of a .75" fish. He hasn't been breathing at the surface or anything but he IS breathing really fast, although that might be from all the effort of trying to stay horizontal. He's in a super heavily planted 2.5 gallon and I do 30% water changes weekly. There's never been enough nitrates in there to turn the stick any kind of color so the water isn't dirty or anything. I'm bummed cause it seems so random since literally nothing new has been introduced to this tank in about 4 months.


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## Geminiluna

LOL... yeah, that's a small fish! Sorry - didn't mean to make light of the situation. Was suggesting that there could be an issue with the gills (ammonia burn, bacterial, parasitic) that is causing this. "Tail Walking" can also be caused by swim bladder issues and fungal infection (microsporidia something). Is there anything that could have caused an ammonia spike?


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## reignOfFred

All you need to do is double check your perameters to make sure everything is solid.

A similar thing happened to one of my 2 yr old harlequins - not really vertical swimming, but swimming with a heavy rear end. he ate right to the end and gradually got worse and died a couple of weeks later.

I know the tank is healthy, i know the other fish are healthy, so I don't worry about it - fish can get ill under the best circumsances, like any creature can including us, that is just life.


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## FriendsNotFood

I take my small critters' health very seriously  I did a 40% water change and will do another small one tomorrow. Just realized that I was out of town last week and I wonder if my friend overfed my fish and that's what caused it. All the other fish and shrimp seem fine but I just want to be on the safe side.


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## Java Moss

Had that problem with my platies and tetras about a year ago. They weren't just going up and down - they were all over the place. 

Checked my parameters...which I only seem to check when something's visually a little off - and all three (A/N/N) were way over the acceptable levels. 

Did 50% water changes every other day for a week, literally "bombing" it with Prime, and now those same fish are still alive and doing good.


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## FriendsNotFood

Well, looks like the little guy didn't make it after all ): Came in to work this morning and he's nowhere to be found. Shrimp are one efficient cleaning crew.


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## Naekuh

FriendsNotFood said:


> Shrimp are one efficient cleaning crew.


AMEN to that... :thumbsup:


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