Elderly Fish

As it happens, I have a feeling I'm going to lose those two harlequins and an x-ray imminently - I certainly don't think they'll see the year 2020. I think the x-ray tetra with the curved-up tail will be next - I think he'll wear himself out attempting to combat a swimbladder resembling a helium balloon from its 'pulling upwards' effects.

As an update, the aforementioned x-ray is still surviving... he and the completely blind x-ray in the previous post here spend 90% of their time sparring. With his difficulty seeing food, the blind tetra has lived on by availing of food from the snail pot. Just this afternoon, though, I see a white dot with fungus-like strands on the corner of his right/worst eye. It may be the same as my tiger nerite had for a day or two, which I think was a grain of fungused food under his shell and which I was eventually able to remove, with a toothbrush from recollection. I can't see me being able to remove this from the tetra's eye, though... My options are removing him to medicate with anti-fungus treatment in the hospital tank or leaving him be - given his age, skinniness, deteriorating swimbladder function, and the possibility that this is a fungused piece of food rather than a (secondary) fungal infection under the eye, I'm minded to leave him where he is. I'll monitor the situation (and that of his sparring partner with whom there is lots of physical contact) - if need be, the hospital tank may have to come out, whether for use with medication or not.

Edited to add: Problem solved! Half an hour later and the 'fungus' / likely fungused food morsel has dislodged itself and vanished.
Edited again to add: Photo shows blind fish at front left where he tends to 'hang' (when not sparring) - his dodgy eye is quite noticeable.

Thanks for the update @fcmf
Glad to hear that they are both still doing well. 

Whatever happens we can be sure your harlies have had a good life with you @fcmf

Thanks for the kind words, both.
The fish moved at breakfast time, although didn't eat, but the situation was so severe that I lifted out the E equipment which I've left sitting beside the tank.  When resting at the top, he doesn't look in distress but is breathing fast; however, when he moves for a swim, it's a different matter.  Due to reflections / lack of tank lighting at this time of the day / miraculous improvements or lull in symptoms every time I take out the phone camera, I've managed to take a not-very-clear video from above: https:///youtu.be/lvxk55SF2tw
 
My gut reaction is to leave this to nature for the time being, unless he starts rolling around on the substrate or in the plants and can't regain control.

I do empathise with those heart-skipping-a-beat moments, @Littlefish, when something is out of the ordinary. There's definitely something about losing the last of a shoal or the last of the original fish that is / will be quite poignant. Glad she is otherwise doing well, though (and that I'm not the only one who has fish with curved spines!).

Updated to add video of blind x-ray tetra: https:///youtu.be/fIDSIjRNBWI


 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIDSIjRNBWI" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIDSIjRNBWI</a>

All round to fcmf's for the tank party 

Phew, glad to hear that he perked up. 

This experience is certainly broadening my knowledge!
I observed the blind tetra for a considerable duration yesterday evening, occasionally during the night, and again this morning. He loses complete control (presumably of his swimbladder) for about 12 hours while presumably sleeping – I always believed that fish only dozed off and on but this suggests otherwise.  [NB it’s not related to lights on/off – lights on 2pm-9pm but this starts at around 8pm and ceases during the morning.]  During this time, it as though he is in outer space, completely controlled by the filter current, with absolutely no attempt to rectify himself or the situation at any stage – he tumbles continuously but in slow motion in every direction and angle, sinks to the bottom nose or tail down or diagonally or on his side flat or curled, gets swept up, tossed into a plant, the flow releases him, and so on.  He seems oblivious, and the other fish are far more perturbed, nudging his body out of the way if he falls on or among them or into the snail foodpot beside them. This continues after the other fish wake up and move around and eat, then eventually he “comes to” and is back to his usual self during the daytime – sparring with another x-ray tetra mainly, or bumping into others as though for reassurance of their presence, before spending the late afternoon and early evening tilted at an angle but otherwise maintaining buoyancy.
It’s as though he’s part-time dead (during the night) and part-time partially alive (during the day), and during which he has control of his swimbladder (albeit his tail has curved up in his presumable ongoing efforts to maintain buoyancy).
I’m not sure whether a breeder box or positioning of the net to contain him overnight would help – it would certainly reduce any stress among the other fish from his seemingly lifeless body being tossed around but I’m wondering if the oxygenation / movement while being tossed around might be helping him and I would be concerned about any stress on his part if he woke up during the night and found himself trapped. I could put him in the hospital tank minus medication but, being blind, he relies on nudging his way along the tank and bumping into his shoalmates to establish where he is - and I’d be concerned that the curved front on that tank and being isolated might stress him.

I think the blind tetra's demise is going to be slow. I can't fathom how he's still alive, given how night-time is spent being cascaded around the tank and tumbling almost permanently. Each night, and the following morning, I decide that it might be better to use the E equipment, then change my mind as the day wears on and there are signs of life, including his attempts to retrieve food and his coloured fins. However, his mouth and body have been turning an increasingly grey shade, the tumbling antics are crossing over into daytime interspersed with 3 wiggles of the tail to rectify his position, and much of yesterday and today so far is spent moving/scavenging immediately above the substrate (while swaying from side to side), then doing a forward roll when attempting to pick up a morsel of food, with the occasional rise up, suspended vertically and nose-up. I can't envisage him surviving another week but time will tell.

Bendy Harley spends most of his time hidden behind the one flourishing plant but comes out at food-time and has learned how to retrieve food from a high silk plant leaf - but ends up somersaulting in the process of being in a C shape to retrieve it.

For the time being, I'm letting them enjoy their final days while interest in their environment/food and inquisitiveness remains. Should this wane, then nature might take its course or I might have to review the situation about whether to intervene (especially if the deterioration is marked).

Edited to add videos on 06/03/20:
X-ray tetra (during daytime): https:///youtu.be/nKO95EzMOTQ
Harlequin rasbora: https:///youtu.be/WvvQIBleQqA

Sorry to hear this fcmf. I have also found it is often when the other fish show interest as they did for you that the time has truely come. Your fish are so well cared for and this is no exception. RIP blind tetra.

Thanks, both.
I hadn't been aware of this issue of other fish showing an interest in previous imminent deaths - or, at least, I can't recall it at the moment. However, that's very interesting.
I visited the LFS and got quite emotional and choked up when looking in the tank of x-ray tetras. Mr FCMF spotted some razorback turtles and, on enquiring about their life expectancy, suggested we get them in future as it might spare me the upset of losing a pet!

It's quite strange not having sparring going on in the tank. I thought that the remaining two x-ray tetras might spar instead - not yet.
The one with the buoyancy problems - Bent-Up Tail X-ray - seems to have taken a turn for the worse this morning after a couple of months' plateauing of his condition.
The other - Pop-eyed X-ray - developed an eye injury in July 2018 following some sparring and has largely spent his time resting near the substrate under the wood for the past half year or so. In the past fortnight, his injured eye became very pop-eyed and he looks quite alien-like to the extent that I've spotted him observing himself in the tank reflection. (Blind Tetra's eye started out similarly, went pop-eyed, then seemed to "burst", leaving him with the blindness. eSHa 2000 had not been effective when I tried it a couple of years ago.) For Pop-eyed Tetra, I decided against medication given its previous ineffectiveness, I didn't think such an elderly fish could handle it, and Blind Tetra seemed "reassured" when bumping into his shoalmates to find his way around the tank; now that the latter factor is no longer in the equation, I'm mulling over the medication issue again. [Edited to add: Pop-eyed Tetra photo, front view on (with some plants hanging down in front of him).]

Bendy Harley seems to have been twitching more to the left today.

I was having a look through the dates of the various fishes' deaths - there was a reprieve between a fatal accident behind the filter in July 2016 and the female x-ray with the ulcer in her side in Feb 2018. Let's hope that, following the likely aforementioned 3 (2 likely imminently), there might be a bit of a reprieve for a while again!