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Orph unwell!!

25 9:58:58

Question
I have had 4 Orphs and 5 gold fish in a pond in my garden for the past 3 years with no problems.  However, I recently bought a tank and brought all the fish inside.  I have noticed that one of the Orphs is moving very sluggish, the fins seems to be almost gasping like movements.  Sometimes when I move him he just rolls over, then I will see him go into the bottom corner of the tank and just wave his tail.  Also his tail has a bend in it and has been like that in the pond.  what should I do?

Answer
Orfe are true pond fish in that they need a lot of room to swim fast.  They need a lot of oxygen too.  How big are your orfe?  How big is the tank?  What kind of filtration and aeration do you have?  The orfe may be bent from physical injury or other reasons (see http://www.fishpondinfo.com/health4.htm#bent ).  You should aerate the water well with an air stone.  Test the tank's pH, ammonia, and nitrite levels to be sure that they're ok.  The orfe need to be in a pond.  I have three baby orfe right now that are only maybe 3 inches long (as well as two adults who are 1.5 feet long).  The babies swim SO fast, there's no way that they would do well in one of my aquariums, even the 120 gallon one.  Good luck!