# Epileptic fish?



## dennis (Mar 1, 2004)

I have a fish question. I believe that I have a fish that is either mentally handicapped or has Turret's syndrome or something. My girlfriend Carolyn had a mating pair of Rosy barbs. She has now about 23 fry that survived and are now about 7 months old. Some of them were obviously small, under developed, etc and have not mad it but those that have seem pretty healthy.

Now for the question. I have some of them in 2 different tanks at my place. Most are around 1.5 inches long and very active. One, about 2-3 weeks ago developed a condition where it swims normally for about 1-2 minutes the spases out for maybe 5 seconds. It swims erratically in circles, frantically twisting and writhing but stays in one place. Probably never moves more than 1" from where the "fit" started, then it resumes swimming normally as if nothing happened. It does not seem any worse for where. It eats fine, hangs with the other fish and never seems tired or stressed the rest of the time. None of its siblings have exhibited this condition. The only thing I can think to compare it to is epilepsy. 

Does anyone know what this is or what caused it. Natural selection or a result of inbreeding to create a long-finned strain( both parents are long finned BTW) perhaps. Can fish have epilepsy? Has anyone else ever experienced this? It really does not seem to both her or the siblings. She is currently in a 5.5 lowlight tank with crypts and moss. Water quality is good, pH ~7.4 Gh 9 kH 3. This condition started in a different tank but none of the fish in that one have this problem either.

Any ideas?

Thanks


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## JanS (Apr 14, 2004)

Wow Dennis, that sure is a new one to me. It does indeed sound like it could be something in the nervous system.
I guess as long as it's doing okay and has no visible signs of disease you could wait it out and give it the same chance as the rest of them - as long as you're not selling it to someone.

You can't help but feel bad for them.....


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## gpodio (Feb 4, 2004)

Hi Dennis, I had the same thing happen to one of my cardinals, you may find a thread somewhere about my "breakdancing cardinal"  He just started doing this one day and it never got better, not sure what caused it. Besides his fits and extra dose of stress from my angelfish, he seemed healthy and lived over a year like this, he died with the rest of the cardinals when someone cleaned the tank with spray cleaners... :evil: 

Giancarlo Podio


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