i've got a 6x2x2 display tank. fish appear to be sick but i cant diagnose the problem. The fish are breathing heavy and very skitish(they normally greet me at front of the tank but they are now just darting in all directions),i havent noticed them excreting at all either over the last 4 days. My large common pleco came out
with a 1cm large white blister which opened up and now looks like a cut. all fish are still feeding well. my two plecos have sunken bellies. the type of fish affected are plecos, Bristnose cats, orange spot bristlenose cats, red fin kadango, protomelas "taiwain reef", yo-yo loaches, venustus, fossochromis rostratus. Fish that arent showing all symptons are silver sharks,clown loaches and 5 frontosa. the only sympton they have is not excreting. first noticed problem with pleco about a week ago although smaller pleco(gibbicep) had a sunken belly for about 2-3 months. new fish added have being 6 clown loaches 3 weeks ago and 2 venustus 1 week ago.
-pH =7.8
- Temp =28c
- NH3 =0ppm
- NO2 =0ppm
- NO3 =10ppm.
aqaurium is 6x2x2 with calcium carbonate substrate, rocks built up along back.
filtration=otto 1800lhr cannister filter and two 2000lhr internal power filters.
water changed on wednesday 25%. i have being feeding spirulina flake daily, protein pellets every second day and bloodworms twice a week.
any help is extremely appreciated. thanks in advance
rightio champ...
in the immediate....do a decent water change (40-50%), and get a dose of melafix in there to help with any wounds on the fish, and if you can get your hands on some metrozidonal to settle them down and settle bloat if any are suffering it.
Keep up the melafix for the week and then get some para-ex tablets from Ben, AOA, big sponsor of this forum. It can address worms that can cause wasting in your fish, other main cause is muscular distrophy (think that's how it is spelt)..hard to get fish back from it, lepto's are heavily susceptible.
might have come in the new fish you added, particular clown loaches maybe.
Anyways, important thing is to get the tank stable, and melafix in there to heal the fish.
diet....not to good there either champ.
to minimise rise, reduce your protein or do next to daily water changes. taiwan reef is likely not to make it sorry as they are very touchy for malawans.
for the general diet in that tank, i'd stop feed protein pellets (maybe only enough for the venustus and frontosa to get), and no blood worm. Stick to the veggie flake, as well as a general cichlid flake, algae discs, maybe the odd shrimp pellet.
That's what i reckon anyway champ, i had lots of problems until i really got into making sure i fed fish what suits them.
lots of people with disagree with me as some fellas feed even tropheus bulk protein and i know guys who breed and grow out b/nose on protein pellets but you need to be doing very regular water changes and premium filtration, sump setup ideally.
Cheers,
Andrew.
-Fishtraderlau
in Blackwater, Qld.
I had a similar problem...
I tried everything...
At the end of the day, I pulled the rocks apart and there was a LARGE bulidup of crap underneath one of them...
I siphoned it all out and the problem was gonne.
Mile
andrew, thanks for the detailed response. i will start with your reccomendations straight away. i will keep this post updated to let you know how things pan out.
thanks again.
cheers
chris
Hey Mile,
That's good thinking too, we've had the similar problem before in a sumped system, the odd fish continually dfropping off so pulled every tank apart on the system and alas, remains of a fish fairly wedged well under one, maybe the rock had fallen on it, in any event, tidying that up and one final water change returned it all to good.
Chris, like Mile says, have a good look too hey when you do the water change, you'll have the water level down nice and low so not to hard to move things around so good luck champion.
Cheers,
Andrew.
How did you end up going champ? Find what the problem was?
not too sure what it was. it might of being a bacterial infection of some kind. I've had no deaths so far but the largest pleco doesn't look to good. i did the water change and then started treating with Pimafix and Melafix. after 5 days they all stopped breathing heavy and now seem healthy. i also changed their diet to vegie flake.
could'nt use some of the medications because of the catfish in the tank so steve from Aquarium's Alive recommended the pimafix.
cheers
Do you have any Driftwood in the tank??
I have never had a problem with sucken belly and every tank that has a Pleco or BN in it has driftwood.
Just a coincidence???
Maybe, but it works for me, so.
there's no driftwood in the tank. i've got some out the back but, might be worth putting it in and see how they go. does it affect the hardness of the water much???
cheers
I 've heard you have to make sure you have plenty of air going in there, some meds either take the o2 out of the water or stop the water absorbing it.I'm not totally sure which meds do this but I think melafix was one.Someone else might have other info but thats all I know.
Brian.