Hello,
We have 3 fish - Spot, George & Kitty. They're all beautiful fan tails. But Kitty has a problem. About a week and a half ago, maybe even two weeks she started just sitting on the bottom. She's the smallest and normally the most active, always coming to visit when we got near the tank, but she just sat.
I did some reading and took her out and into a separate bowl where she fasted for two days. Then I cooked some peas, took the hulls off and fed them to her (I cut them up a little first). But she turned her nose up at them. I believe she's constipated - I haven't seen her poop in some time. I read that feeding them food that sinks is a good idea because with floating flakes they sometime get some air with the food and that's not good, could be a cause for swim bladder problems, which btw is what I believe her problem is.
Well, she didn't eat the peas and was getting sort of frantic in the bowl, though it was plenty large and not confining. So we put her back in the tank. Now she sits for awhile and then tries to swim around but it's obviously difficult for her and she darts up to the surface and take gulps of air (to help her buoyancy?). The bubbles come out and she sinks back to the bottom. And she won't eat either.
We are distraught. Our kitty is having a hard time. What can we do? I do hope someone can give us some advice. I tried on another forum but no one answered for over a week.