Sick Electric Blue Jack Dempsey

[Cheryl P.]

I've had this guy for about a month.  I noticed yesterday that he looked a little "rough" but I couldn't quite put a finger on why.  This morning he didn't come out for food like normal.  For the most part he's swimming fine but I saw him doing a barrel roll/corkscrew move a couple of times.  It looks like his eyes are a little sunken in?  He was in a 220 gallon tank with 6 silver dollars, 2 gold severums, 1 angel fish, 1 chocolate cichlid, 3 electric blue acaras, and a common pleco. Everyone else is swimming fine and looks ok.  I tested the water and had 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and 25 nitrates.

I put him in the glass to take pictures and transfer him to a 10 gallon hospital tank upstairs.  I put 4 tbs of marine salt in the 10 gallon.  Any suggestions what is going on and how I should treat it?

[Fish Folk]

Not sure. He looks pretty good. These guys generally have _terrible_ genetics because of inbreeding. His belly looks a wee bit sunken in. Could possibly be internal parasites. Hard to say though. Loss of balance / rolling sounds like maybe an injured swim bladder. That can happen with a sudden impact from a hard object or another larger fish. Sometimes my 5-yr old will run at a tank, scare the fish, and cause them to swim hard into Hardscape.

[Colu]

Some species of parasites can cause odd swimming behaviour I would up the salt to 1 table spoon for 2 gallons and treat with paracleanse for parasites it can take 2-3 course of treatment 2weeks a part