Well Dory looks much improved this morning. his balance is still a little wobbly but he is upright and swimming much more normally. He is still gasping a little but the rate slows down rapidly when he stops swimming. For the first time in nearly a week he is hunting for food.
I gave him a couple of flakes and a skinned baby pea and he ate them straight away.
He is an oddly shaped fish. He is about 4-5 inches long like Patch but were Patch is the typical torpedo comet/shabuchan shape Dory has a much deeper body, twice as deep as Patch. No discernible variety but definitely not a comet.
Remember those water quality problems I was having?
I ended up removing all the gravel and doing partial water changes twice a week to keep Dory's fins and mucus membrane in reasonable shape. Even Patch was suffering. The ammonia levels wee pesistantly high and Ph low.
It finially occured to me last month that the filter wasn't coping with the 2 largish fish.
New larger filter and new gravel and we have two happy more energetic fish with no signs of any problems. Ammonia levels are back to almost none exsistant and Ph is finally at 7. All without a total water change.
