# Please help! Fish accidently put in too cold water - Recovery advice needed!



## stevenjb (Mar 10, 2013)

Hi. I have had this fish for almost two years, very happy and very healthy little guy. 
However, by accident during a water change on Friday evening after cleaning his bowl, the water temp was unintentionally too cold. He immediately sank to bottom of bowl, curled up sideways and layed there in distress. I instantly removed him and put him in a smaller container with appropiate water temperature. 
He improved only slightly, breathing became very labored and I really thought he would be gone by Saturday morning. Much to my suprise on Saturday morning, his breathing was not as heavy and slow, not nearly as labored as before. On Friday, he was barely breathing, fins moving soo slowly - so this was good to see improved breathing.
That being said, he was tilting his head towards bottom of container, not moving much. Now, that has stopped. However, here is the problem. Won't eat at all, ignores all food pellets, he will move if I put a finger near him and moves quickly, he will move on his own from time to time but is still most of the time. He also keeps his eyes closed halfway, so I know he is struggling.
Is there anything at all I can do to help his recovery. Again, this happened Friday evening and he is still hanging in there. 
I feel so awful for the cold water situation. Any advice or suggestions would be so greatly appreciated. He is now in his bowl but only filled halfway up, and he does move slightly but will not eat and behaves as if in shock or just not feeling well. As mentioned, his eyes being half opened and swimming so slowly, lathargic behavior combined with no eating interest is alraming. I know the cold water has done this, anything at all I can do to help him recover?
Thank you so very much
PS. His eyes arent puffy, just trying to describe his behavior. This all happened immediately after cold water situation.


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## ao (Feb 29, 2012)

Keep him dark, warm. make sure his water is heated... if he has trouble swimming, keep the water level low. he's in shock or still recovering from it and eating would be the last thing on his mind... let him recover first, disturb at little as you need to. to do a gentle water change you can grab two pieces of airline and use one to siphon water out slowly, whilst running another from new (apparopriately temperatured) water to siphon in...

I recommend higher temperatures for fish recovery, around 82 or more


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## stevenjb (Mar 10, 2013)

Thank you so much for the helpful advice and suggestions. I will certainly try to get his water a bit warmer while he attempts to recover. I will try not to worry about him not eating for now, very understandable.
I do have his bowl only less than full, and I will try not to disturb him as you are suggesting. I will follow all of the other suggestions too.
Thank you again for the suggestions, excellent advice and I appreciate it.


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## callistra (Jun 29, 2010)

Make sure when you do a water change you use his in tank thermometer to match the running tap to his current bowl temp exactly. That will avoid this in the future. 

Good luck


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