Help! My rope is dying!

Jbean_88 · Jul 6, 2017

I have a senior rope fish (I've had her for 10 years, no idea how old she was when I got her) who is suffering! I pulled her out of my 55 that I just finished a salt/heat treatment for ich in. As of last night, around midnight, she's been lethargic and when she does swim she's without direction. Her gills are a little red and her breathing is labored. She's scarred from a previous bacterial infection so it's hard to see if she's got any new symptoms (aside from attitude). I don't even know where to start with her and am worried about her age.
Tank parameters are as follows:
Ph- 8 (I've been gradually lowering it, we have really hard water and the. tank was 8.6)
Ammonia- 0
Nitrates- 0-5 ppm (hard to be absolute)
Nitrites- 0
Temp- 84°
*tested with API freshwater test kit

Tank has been established since December (We did a tank shuffle after moving and she was moved from the 55, to a 29, to a 10, and back to the 55. Slinky, the rope, was the only inhabitant until March when we added the others, a few at a time. I did not quarantine (learned my lesson there) and lost 2 paradise fish, a GBR, and the tank ended up with ich. Everyone is looking better but my poor rope.

Tankmates include:
1 paradise fish
1 German Blue ram
1 Ruby ram
1 common pleco
1 juvenile rope

Charney · Jul 11, 2017

wow she is an old girl and not sure how long there life span actually is. this could be related to a severe ich infection to the gills but also could be completely unrelated. can you put her in a qt tank?

Jbean_88 · Jul 12, 2017

Thanks for your response! I did place her in a 10 gallon qt tank but unfortunately, she passed away within a a matter of hours. I have read that their lifespan ranges from 10-15 years so she was definitely up there. She had been such a happy, healthy fish up until her breathing changed so my theory is that any sort of ailment (ick in this case) became life threatening due to age.