Karen B.

I ordered WCMM from my LFS (no breeder in the area and we are in lockdown so couldn’t go pick them up). One of them is really thin. Its belly is just flat, not rounded (but not caved in either). He mostly swim by itself toward the surface. Yesterday it was unable to eat my Hikari fancy guppy pellets. Today I gave them frozen bloodworms that I thawed in Seachem garlic guard and the little fish would take one, munch on it for 10 seconds and spit it. Same with a smaller piece. I isolated him with a fishnet and tried again the fancy guppy hikari food but it was too stressed to eat. I live in Canada, we do not have access to any fish medication so I was afraid with all this stress he would develop something like ich. I isolated him in a small pitcher with aquarium water, a plastic plant from the tank and a air stone. I have tried giving him food again but it mostly stays at the bottom of the pitcher. I am at loss for the next step? Should I put him back in the tank? I have frozen daphnia, should I try these before? Thank you everyone.

Thank you very much everyone. It’s awesome to feel so welcome. 😊

Thank you so much for your kind words everyone! @BrandySo between the both of us, Candi needs a raise! Thank you for your advices and comforting words.

Greetings! I am new in the hobby - I was looking for something to distract me from my chronic disease and reduce my anxiety. Turns out that now I have one more thing to be anxious about... my fish! Ask Candi if you have any doubts! (I did become a member as a way to say thank you for her patience). I love water, I used to scuba dive, my favorite animal has always been the orca - so aquarium are just a pure joy for me. It’s a bit complicated as I am immunosuppressed and must avoid any contact with fish water (poop = risk of salmonella) but I still manage to enjoy keeping them (with my oversized rubbed gloves that go all the way up to my shoulders). I don’t know anyone locally that enjoy or keep fish, so I am looking forward to make friends here to talk about fish. I currently have a 20 gallons high with 9 white cloud minnow and 3 dwarf mexicain crayfish (cpo). I have a 10 gallons cycling too - for guppies or platies, I can’t quite make up my mind yet! All with plastic plants because... I don’t like plants. Please don’t ban me! Hehe. Now I know Cory will never ever speak to me! Plants don’t like me either - I was attacked by my dead cactus... I have yet to fully recover 🤪 My next dream aquarium would be a 40 gallons breeder. Planted this time, with a bunch of false julii cory, 4 honey gourami, 1 apisto and 1 bolivian ram. And a schooling fish that I have yet to figure out (maybe green or black neon tetra?) I live in Québec, Canada, which means I can’t order anything from Aquarium Co-op and it makes me very, very sad. Even more annoying because Cory is such a good seller (x-treme food anyone?). And the stickers... 😍 It also means we do not have access to fish medication here. If you want to be able to give something to your fish, it must be prescribed by a vet. I kid you not. I have a hard time thinking that bringing my fish in a ziploc bag at the vet is yet the best way to go to treat him but... 🤷🏻‍♀️ Here are few pictures. Please no hate for the plastic plants, someone ranted 4 days straight about it on FB already. Thank you!

No because I live in Québec, Canada 😭

Greetings. I feel so terrible- I am new at fish keeping. Decided to pick this hobby to try and feel better - to change my mind from focussing on my chronic disease, anxiety, etc. Sadly... I care so much, I am oversensitive, I want to do so well, I donˋt want to cause any harm or stress to my fish... I end up really anxious. Poor Candi must be so annoyed with my all questions. And at the end, I think I did the opposite and made the passing of one fish much more stressful then it should have been. Yesterday my golden White Cloud Mountain Minnow got spooked by something and swam up and then down really quickly, crashing on the substrate. It looked dazzled after that so I closed all the light and let the group settle in a early night to reduce the stress. This morning it was just swimming at the top, barely moving, not schooling with the others, its mouth wide opened. Not much reaction - one fish even bumped into him. I didn’t want him to suffer, or suffocate or die of starvation and didn’t know if maybe he had something stuck in its mouth. I put him in a small cup, tried to look in its mouth, using a tiny object to poke gently- there wasn’t anything that I could see. I could close its mouth but it would reopen in the water. And the poor thing started trashing and wiggling... I think I half killed him by stressing him out so much trying to help. At the end I euthanized him with clover oil but it pains me to think I put him through so much in its last moment. Some would say it’s just a fish, but I don’t agree. No living creatures should suffer. Anyway, not too sure what to do next time if something happens to my fish - try to help it with the chance of making it worst and high level of stress... or letting nature run its course. Thank you for listening. I figure I would give Candi a break...