My son's flatshare has ended - therefore I have Gary, the flat Japanese Fighting Fish (who is really small) lodging with me. Gary has been the 'flat pet' for 18 months but they don't know how old he was when he arrived. Over the past couple of weeks he has been spending lots of time on the bottom of the tank and seemed to be struggling to swim up to the surface to feed.
Tank, filter and pump were cleaned out properly by son on arrival and special additive for hard water put in the clean water. However I am trying to find out why Gary is spending so much time at the bottom and wonder if anyone has any advice? He has been fasted/starved and fed a cooked frozen pea (without the skin) but it hasn't made any difference. Every now and then he will swim to the surface and this morning seemed to have a spurt of energy across the water but then went back to resting on the bottom. He came up to the surface for some flakes but the effort seemed to tire him out
Could it be that he is just getting on a bit? Could it be his swim bladder? or constipation? Should I feed him more? Is it trial and error? The water temperature is a steady 24/25 degrees according to the thermometer. I am more a mammal person than fish so really out of my depth! I just don't want to do something that will make Gary suffer 😟