Michigan Cichlid Association
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Kaia on July 07, 2013, 12:20:25 AM
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So, a good portion of these fish have concave bellies and occasionally flash. I thought maybe they were not fed well. After asking around some think its a parasite and others think I'm crazy. Also when I google it, the parasite thing seems to be coming up. I did a 50 percent water change and omg did that take forever. I added 25 TBS of aquarium salt to the tank (125 gallon) after the water change and salt the fish seem to be flashing more than they ever have. I just was curious what other thought the issue would be and an opinion on what the best thing to do is?
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Was the new tank completely drained when you got it?
If so it's possible the tank is cycling that would cause the flashing but not the sunken bellies
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No it belonged to someone else. I didn't rinse the rock and kept I. Moist in transport. I also left the water in the filter and it was all hooked back up upon arrival. I've only had it since 4th. So they already had the concave bellies. Most of the water was brand new though treated with aqueon water conditioner.
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concave bellies is when they have internal parasites. And occasionally flash could be that your Water parameters are off.
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I know salt helps with a lot of disease? Is the only way to treat this chemically?
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I know salt helps with a lot of disease? Is the only way to treat this chemically?
yes that what I do when I see and cichlid stop eating and having white poop.
Most people don't realize is that hardy fish like cichlids most times have an adequate slime coat to repel them. Sometimes if your fish scratch it might just be because they have an ich, or they could be fighting off parasites. Most times its weak or sick fish that allow the propagation and infestation to begin. Adding salt is indeed a good way to help your fish fight off such infestations.
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Hum, well they do eat and I've not noticed white poop. Seems to be tan (color of pellets I feed)
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It could be an internal parasite, or it could be that they haven't been fed very much either. Fish that haven't been fed for a week will get a hollow looking belly as well.
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I'll be the first one to tell ya I'm FAR from an expert, but since you've only had the tank 2-3 days, and you noticed the flashing more after the water change, I'd say it most likely could be just simple change in water parameters. I've noticed when I first started back into the hobby last year that it took me awhile to get the hang of how much water to change, matching the temps, adding the right amount of conditioner etc etc, and when I was off a bit with some of those the fish would flash for a bit after but it didn't last very long after the water change, they would settle down.
As Marty said the sunken bellies could just be a bit of a lack of food since you don't know how the previous owner would feed them, and in the pics of the tank you posted I noticed there was a wide variety of size fish so there may be some that are a bit of food hogs and getting the food before others have a chance. So I'd just watch to see if the flashing continues, make sure they are not showing any signs of ich or white poop as Jenna said, and also feed them on both sides of of the tank (spread it across the tank so all the fish have a chance to get some) and see how it goes. I wouldn't worry too much unless you started seeing some for sure signs of problems like white poop, constant flashing, white spots on the fish etc etc.
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Great advice! I didn't add the conditioner this time and added 25 TBS of salt at 50% water change. How white is white? If its feeding how long until improvement? I've been watching the sunken bellies and they are eating. If I don't see improvement should I remove only the ones with sunken bellies and treat in a separate tank? Also I see this floaty white stuff that looks like dead skin? Might be normal but I don't see stuff like that in my other tanks. My other tanks though are not a heavily populated with such large fish.
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That might be old poop, so disregard the pics. Anything I see hanging off their bodies after feeding is the color of the food.
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If they are eating and have sunken bellies... I would feed them good the next week or so and see if they fatten up. They may just need more food than they were getting.
I am a firm believer now of not adding anything to the tanks unless it is 100% needed. Live on learn on my part.
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If they are eating and have sunken bellies... I would feed them good the next week or so and see if they fatten up. They may just need more food than they were getting.
I am a firm believer now of not adding anything to the tanks unless it is 100% needed. Live on learn on my part.
Ok I will give it two weeks and see if there is any improvement.
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Would also check tank parameters. Either home test or take a sample to LFS and they can do it for you. I add a stress coat to the water to help the slime coat of the fish. Could also add live bacterial culture, like API quick start, in case the biological filter took a hit during the move.
Agree with water changes, but make sure temp and so forth are same. More than a couple degree change in water temp can stress the fish out more
The bellies could be sunken if they hadn't eaten much before the move.
Good luck
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Update: water and video and photos taken in to preuss. Considering I did 100 percent water change and 2 days later 50 percent, my ammonia and nitrite are spiked. I got a sponge and have to do 3 25 percent changes this week. Then 25 percent once a week. They also have a bacterial infection so will be treated for this for the next 7 days.
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Get yourself a bottle of a live bacteria culture like TLC Startsmart and your tank will cycle much faster with less stress on your fish.
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I put quick start in and the sponge is cycled
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Make sure to keep adding the quick start. It will usually say on the bottle the amount and frequency. It's not a 1 time thing. It will take time to reestablish the bio filter.
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Make sure to keep adding the quick start. It will usually say on the bottle the amount and frequency. It's not a 1 time thing. It will take time to reestablish the bio filter.
Thing is, I never touched the bio balls in the filter? And the substrate was from their tank unrinsed? If the bacteria live in substrate and in filter I thought I would be fine... Even with a 100 percent water change
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Make sure to keep adding the quick start. It will usually say on the bottle the amount and frequency. It's not a 1 time thing. It will take time to reestablish the bio filter.
Thing is, I never touched the bio balls in the filter? And the substrate was from their tank unrinsed? If the bacteria live in substrate and in filter I thought I would be fine... Even with a 100 percent water change
I think where I errored was vacuuming the substrate and changing out the carbon and rinsing the sponge media. I thought leaving the bio balls alone would be enough :/
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Well if you used untreated tap water when you first set it up you could of killed off what good you did have in the gravel and on top of that if the filter was running after you put the tap water in that would of killed what's on the bioballs.good chance you have chlorie and crap in your water. Live and learn right.
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Well if you used untreated tap water when you first set it up you could of killed off what good you did have in the gravel and on top of that if the filter was running after you put the tap water in that would of killed what's on the bioballs.good chance you have chlorie and crap in your water. Live and learn right.
I treated initial fill with aqueon water conditioner. The 50 percent change I didn't treat but it's well water. I added the salt instead. My other two tanks are fine, but I started them myself, brand new from scratch. Maybe instead of buying a used tank with occupants I should bought some house plants lol
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Did they test your water hardness? Well water can sometimes be a lot softer espically if the fish came from someone with hard water water and yours being softer you could of shocked them.
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Well water is typically hard.... then after the softner it is soft.
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I don't have a softener! I rough it. ;)
pH 8.2
Ammonia 1.5
Nitrite .25 (I've since done a 25 percent change with conditioner)
Nitrate 40
GH 19
KH 14
The nitrate cycle is the least of my concern really. The ill fish are my problem. I just picked these up on the 4th. Quite a few are emaciated and yes I'm noticing stringy poop coming from some. Others it's like the sausage machine got air in it. Preuss told me bacterial but everything is leading me to parasitic. So I guess my plan is just to keep the water in check and give them a good diet. Hopefully their own immune system will kick in. Those that don't improve will visit the freezer vet.
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Since you are seeing white stringy poop then for sure treat the tank sounds like you have some sort of parasite. But do a water change again ASAP because Ammonia should be 0ppm and if you are at 1.5ppm that is not good at all for the fish, you need to get that ammonia level down by doing PWC's everyday until the filter media re-establishes itself.
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Since you are seeing white stringy poop then for sure treat the tank sounds like you have some sort of parasite. But do a water change again ASAP because Ammonia should be 0ppm and if you are at 1.5ppm that is not good at all for the fish, you need to get that ammonia level down by doing PWC's everyday until the filter media re-establishes itself.
I agree
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Those measurements were before my 25 percent water change
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I will do 25 percent daily. Any idea how long, like a rough estimate? Considering I have nitrates and just introduced an established sponge? Also I won't be treating these fish now, as I feel like their already under enough stress from the move and the perimeters being off. I have no doubt that their water conditions have change drastically.
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Keep doing the 25% WC's until you stabilize the Ammonia and Nitrites to continuously read zero. Keep adding in the recommended doses of TLC SMART START COMPLETE as suggested and keep adding back in any salt that you may removed while doing the WC's... Repeat only replace the salt that you have removed by doing the WC's.
Once you have stabilized your tank say a week and the ammonia and Nitrites continously read zero, I would treat the tank with Metro, this is an overall parasite killer. If you have any parasites in the tank this should wipe it out.
Good Luck !
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Should she stop feeding for a few days? I know that is usually for bloat, but will feeding stressed fish worsen the problem?
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I guess my question would be, if you're adding Quick Start then why are you continuing to do 25% water changes daily? If this is because you are treating the tank with medication that makes sense.
If you're doing it to bring down your ammonia and nitrites, I suspect that you're doing more harm than good because you're likely not giving the beneficial bacteria time to establish itself in your tank. When you pour the bacteria into the tank, it has to adhere to something like your filter media, decorations, gravel, etc. If you're changing water every day, I believe you're disturbing that process (and likely removing some of the bacteria that's in the water column), so you have to keep adding bacteria cultures. I don't know about Quick Start, but I know the TLC will cycle your aquarium in 24 hours.
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I guess my question would be, if you're adding Quick Start then why are you continuing to do 25% water changes daily? If this is because you are treating the tank with medication that makes sense.
If you're doing it to bring down your ammonia and nitrites, I suspect that you're doing more harm than good because you're likely not giving the beneficial bacteria time to establish itself in your tank. When you pour the bacteria into the tank, it has to adhere to something like your filter media, decorations, gravel, etc. If you're changing water every day, I believe you're disturbing that process (and likely removing some of the bacteria that's in the water column), so you have to keep adding bacteria cultures. I don't know about Quick Start, but I know the TLC will cycle your aquarium in 24 hours.
What has worked best for me on a brand new uncycled/mini-cycled (from a move) tank (where I didn't have other tanks to get good bacteria from) is the following.
1) Set up tank
2) Fill with water - I like using Prime to condition the water and neutralize ammonia, less slimey stuff vs. some other brands that have aloe and what not, also much cheaper
3) Start the filter running (power filter with plenty of biomedia, or else a good sized sponge filter)
4) Pour in the TLC Start Smart or Tetra Safe Start.
5) Do not add anything else, do not do water changes, do not test the water for a week. The Prime and/or the bacteria culture can throw off the readings and then you interrupt the process by panicking and doing WCs etc
- Tetra SafeStart can have a brief ammonia and/or nitrite spike, ditto on the StartSmart, but it usually goes away fairly quickly.
- It will not kill the fish to have a brief spike in those parameters, assuming they're healthy adults to begin with
6) Feed normally but sparingly during the week (e.g. don't' dump a ton of food in, but if the fish look like sunken bellies gradually increase the amount of food, what they'll eat in 30 seconds or so, and increase gradually from there as time goes on)
7) At the end of the week, test your water again (preferably with a liquid drop test kit like the Master API freshwater kit, since the test strips expire more quickly and are less accurate)
8) Fish and tank should be fine. If your water parameters are way off still at the end of the week, wait a day and test again.
Final notes: Per the bottles, Safe Start or StartSmart can be added periodically but you should not have to keep adding it. Like Marty said, if you keep changing the water right after adding it you're wasting money on the stuff.
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I guess my question would be, if you're adding Quick Start then why are you continuing to do 25% water changes daily? If this is because you are treating the tank with medication that makes sense.
If you're doing it to bring down your ammonia and nitrites, I suspect that you're doing more harm than good because you're likely not giving the beneficial bacteria time to establish itself in your tank. When you pour the bacteria into the tank, it has to adhere to something like your filter media, decorations, gravel, etc. If you're changing water every day, I believe you're disturbing that process (and likely removing some of the bacteria that's in the water column), so you have to keep adding bacteria cultures. I don't know about Quick Start, but I know the TLC will cycle your aquarium in 24 hours.
What has worked best for me on a brand new uncycled/mini-cycled (from a move) tank (where I didn't have other tanks to get good bacteria from) is the following.
1) Set up tank
2) Fill with water - I like using Prime to condition the water and neutralize ammonia, less slimey stuff vs. some other brands that have aloe and what not, also much cheaper
3) Start the filter running (power filter with plenty of biomedia, or else a good sized sponge filter)
4) Pour in the TLC Start Smart or Tetra Safe Start.
5) Do not add anything else, do not do water changes, do not test the water for a week. The Prime and/or the bacteria culture can throw off the readings and then you interrupt the process by panicking and doing WCs etc
- Tetra SafeStart can have a brief ammonia and/or nitrite spike, ditto on the StartSmart, but it usually goes away fairly quickly.
- It will not kill the fish to have a brief spike in those parameters, assuming they're healthy adults to begin with
6) Feed normally but sparingly during the week (e.g. don't' dump a ton of food in, but if the fish look like sunken bellies gradually increase the amount of food, what they'll eat in 30 seconds or so, and increase gradually from there as time goes on)
7) At the end of the week, test your water again (preferably with a liquid drop test kit like the Master API freshwater kit, since the test strips expire more quickly and are less accurate)
8) Fish and tank should be fine. If your water parameters are way off still at the end of the week, wait a day and test again.
Final notes: Per the bottles, Safe Start or StartSmart can be added periodically but you should not have to keep adding it. Like Marty said, if you keep changing the water right after adding it you're wasting money on the stuff.
^ I agree but I have never had to use Prime to condition the water.
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^ I agree but I have never had to use Prime to condition the water.
Sure. It really depends on your water. Maybe the water is better out your way.
When I'm cycling a tank, or in my SW reef tank(s), I always use Prime per my previous post because it's one less thing to stress out the fish.
I don't recommend this per se, but I use Prime when I can smell the ammonia in the water coming out of the tap, or in a fry tank. When I don't smell ammonia, or if I used Prime the last time, I don't typically use it. When the city is flushing their system and using extra ammonia, e.g. around April (depending on your city), I use Prime every time I do a WC.
Another clarification - you have to have fish (or an ammonia source) when you add the bottled bacteria or it won't work. So you can't just dump bottled bacteria into an empty tank and wait a week then add fish. This is probably a given, but I thought I should be more specific.
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^ I agree but I have never had to use Prime to condition the water.
Sure. It really depends on your water. Maybe the water is better out your way.
When I'm cycling a tank, or in my SW reef tank(s), I always use Prime per my previous post because it's one less thing to stress out the fish.
I don't recommend this per se, but I use Prime when I can smell the ammonia in the water coming out of the tap, or in a fry tank. When I don't smell ammonia, or if I used Prime the last time, I don't typically use it. When the city is flushing their system and using extra ammonia, e.g. around April (depending on your city), I use Prime every time I do a WC.
Another clarification - you have to have fish (or an ammonia source) when you add the bottled bacteria or it won't work. So you can't just dump bottled bacteria into an empty tank and wait a week then add fish. This is probably a given, but I thought I should be more specific.
I don't have city water that why I don't use prime. I have a water softener and I never have had nitrite spike in my water.
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I asked the guy at preuss if putting the quick start in would affect the reading, since I had done it an hour before taking the water and he said no? Also they recommended only 3 25 percent changes this week. So do I do it daily or 3 times this week? If it comes down to daily and feeding or less and not feeding I'd rather do daily. These fish were emaciated, and finally look like a good bulk are putting on some weight. 2 are severely emaciated and just look at the food. Feeding takes 15 minutes or so because I do small pinches until I've seen that most have eaten and they are slowing down in interest.
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Also as I understand it, stuff like safe start is really of no benefit at all once fish are in your tank because I read that the bacteria it puts in is the same that comes from fish. It's the initial bacteria that starts your cycle. Correct me if I'm wrong but that's what I read.
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I think I'm going to just stick with daily. Considering the fish are sick I don't think that they will handle nitrite and ammonia spikes very well. This way ammonia and nitrite can stay within tolerable levels Until I get a zero reading
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Also as I understand it, stuff like safe start is really of no benefit at all once fish are in your tank because I read that the bacteria it puts in is the same that comes from fish. It's the initial bacteria that starts your cycle. Correct me if I'm wrong but that's what I read.
No, the bacteria are naturally occurring. Ammonia is the thing that comes from your fish, which is broken down by the nitrifying/beneficial bacteria. The purpose of the bacteria culture is to establish a bacteria colony in your tank much more quickly than would be naturally occurring, thereby cutting down the amount of time your water parameters will be less than optimal for your fish.
I would leave the water changes alone for a few days and watch your fish. Test your water in a day or so, and see what your levels are at. If your fish appear to be getting worse, then medicate. At this point, it's a crap shoot which way they'll go. They could just get better on their own, or they could take a turn for the worse. The only problem with medications is that they are sometimes harsh on the fish, which is why I'm recommending that route.
If you do treat for internal parasites, you would probably want to treat with metronidazole, kanacyn, or praziquantel. Metro and kanacyn are probably my two favorite go to medications.
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I didn't have time to read the entire thread, but skimmed it and saw this ...
Feeding takes 15 minutes or so because I do small pinches until I've seen that most have eaten and they are slowing down in interest.
Healthy fish are hungry fish. Feeding them is fun, but I'd try to stop short of the point at which they slow down in interest. A couple brief feedings a day is also typically healthier than a single large one.
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I didn't have time to read the entire thread, but skimmed it and saw this ...
Feeding takes 15 minutes or so because I do small pinches until I've seen that most have eaten and they are slowing down in interest.
Healthy fish are hungry fish. Feeding them is fun, but I'd try to stop short of the point at which they slow down in interest. A couple brief feedings a day is also typically healthier than a single large one.
Tank has probably 35 fish, if I limit feeding how would I ensure the less competitive get food also?
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I didn't have time to read the entire thread, but skimmed it and saw this ...
Feeding takes 15 minutes or so because I do small pinches until I've seen that most have eaten and they are slowing down in interest.
Healthy fish are hungry fish. Feeding them is fun, but I'd try to stop short of the point at which they slow down in interest. A couple brief feedings a day is also typically healthier than a single large one.
Tank has probably 35 fish, if I limit feeding how would I ensure the less competitive get food also?
I typically sprinkle food (e.g. NLS pellets or similar) at a couple of spots along the top of the tank so there's several opportunities/locations for fish to snag the food. Also if you have a power filter and drop food in near the outtake of the filter, then it will disperse throughout the tank.
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Tank has probably 35 fish, if I limit feeding how would I ensure the less competitive get food also?
I do as linuxrulesusa just posted, though a bit hidden in the quote - feed along the length of the tank (or 1/2 the length - depends on the fish and tank size IMO).
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I already to that.. Over 3/4 of the tank. They still bump and crash each other tryin to get food. I also try to be conscious about how much I put in at. Time otherwise it flies all over the tank. This tank is 125 but they will be moved to a 220 soon
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Tank has probably 35 fish, if I limit feeding how would I ensure the less competitive get food also?
I do as linuxrulesusa just posted, though a bit hidden in the quote - feed along the length of the tank (or 1/2 the length - depends on the fish and tank size IMO).
Fixed. Tricky quote mechanism messes me up sometime...and I've seen I'm not the only one. ;)