Female apisto question, why is she dieing? **Pics**

[canuckgame]

hey guys, im rather new to Apistos and i am LOVING them, i have 3 cacatuoides (1 male 2 female)

now i THOUGHT one of the females was spawning, and for all i know, she was? she made herself a cave underneath my driftwood, she ignored the flowerpot caves i put in, and she hid in this cave for 4 or 5 days, i never even seen her once, she never came out to eat.

now yesterday i saw her come out, and she was on the brink of death, floating around, going to the top for air, struggle swimming on her side.... the male apisto looked really concerned and started waving his tail at her, and nudgeing her up off the ground telling her to go back in the cave or to go to the top....

she eventually went back into the cave yesterday, and now my lights just came on for the day, and she is now laying on the bottom, looks like shes about to die, has foggy eyes, struggling to breathe, just laying there....

whats going on?? i have tried to make a perfect environment for these fish, all my other fish seem to be thriving, i have Live Plants, driftwood, i bought Almond leaves (just put in yesterday)


i dont want her to die, and im not sure why this is happening, but it looks like its too late..

here is a pic of her yesterday

here is her now, having her last moments it looks like..

 

[canuckgame]

PH-6.5
GH-60 mg/l
KH 30 mg/l
Nitrite-0
Nitrate- also showing 0
Ammonia-0

the male keeps going to the female, laying beside her, nudging her gently, scaring everyone away that comes near.

ive only done 2 things to my tank this week,

added a DIY Co2 system, 2 days ago
added Almond Leaves yesterday

 

[canuckgame]

the male is certainly acting strange as well, i dont know if its because hes upset, or hes sick too, he keeps going next to her laying on his side and then hell swim away.


sorry for the glare

 

[canuckgame]

ok ill do that right now,

 

[canuckgame]

ok, ive caught her, and now acclimating her to my 10 gal... my 10 gal is empty and just finished cycling. ph is probably 7-7.5.... i have a feeling if i add her to this new environment she'll die.

i have her in a ziploc freezer bag acclimating now, i havent started to introduce the new water to her bag yet.

 

[Linus_Cello]

You sure you're not over-dosing on CO2?

 

[canuckgame]

its a possibility i guess, i disconnected the co2 a couple of hours ago and added an air pump into the tank (i dont have an airstone to connect to the tube..) just in case.

im not convinced its the co2, as the other fish are fine it seems, but i disconnected it as a precaution. i have a 45 gal tank, a 2 liter bottle shouldnt be enough to overdose from what i have read.

 

[canuckgame]

well, shes in the 10g now. looks pretty bad, i dont see her recovering now... i wonder what happened...

 

[Mike Wise]

How long have you had these fish? It's always hard to diagnose a problem when there's nothing really visible to go on. It's possible that nothing is wrong with your tank. She might have been sick when you got her. Fish, like most animals, are good at hiding illness.

 

[canuckgame]

thanks for the reply!

she has now passed away, pretty choked about it, these guys are impossible to find in my area, and they were the centerpiece to my tank.

i have had these fish for 3 weeks now. i thought for sure she was spawning, as i didnt see her for 3 or 4 days up until she was really sick, she didnt come out to eat, nothing, just made herself a cave under my driftwood, and never came out!


anyways, i have a pic of her up close, she looks fine and healthy too me, but besides this red spot on her that for all i know could be part of her markings, she looks perfectly fine, ill keep watching my fish to see if any others start to get sick...

**red spot on belly, could be normal? its the only mark on her body anyway

 

[Mike Wise]

The red on the tail is common on domestic female A. cacatuoides. The red on the belly might be hemmoragic septosemia caused by an internal bacterial infection. I never put new fish in with other established fish until they have been quarantined for 4-6 weeks. My guess is that the infection was already in the fish and was activated by the stress of moving.

 

[canuckgame]

ok thanks for the help!

is there anything i should do to my tank so my other fish dont end up dieing on me? any medicines i should buy?

 

[Mike Wise]

If you don't know the cause, medication won't help as much as keeping the water in top condition and keeping a close eye on the behavior of the fish. Turning an aquarium into a 'chemical soup' with a bunch of medications often causes more problems than it helps.

 

[gerald]

Agree with Mike -- likely an internal bacterial infection, and your best course of action to protect the others is a good diverse diet and good water quality, NOT meds unless you've got more specific symptoms of a particular disease.

 

[susanamck]

sorry for the wee lass, this happened to me recently as well. Was a bacterial infection that only became apparent after I introduced her to the tank.
I had started treatment but wasn't lucky enough to save her but the rest of the fish survived and are all healthy!!

 

[ADC Nederland]

Sad to see your fish died.

If I may give you an advise. I never use CO2, mainly because of the problems it can cause on the fish. Apisto's do not come from a heavily planted envioirment like you see in the asian style planted tanks. It looks awesome but it is not the enviorment for Apistogramma species.

I have been keeping Apistogramma's for a long time and what has worked best for me is simply tapwater, almond leaves and a good established bacteria culture. I import wildcaught and bred species and the wildcaught fish are always the ones breeding in regular tapwater without any problems and besides the almond leaves I do nothing to change the water values.

The most common mistake made is that people tend to change their water values so much that it becomes harder to control. If you bought the fish in a store, ask them about their water values and messure the water with a testing set when you get home. If the store is close you where you live they are probably using the very same water that runs from your tap (minus the chlorine) and you should probably stay as close to those values as possible. and change the water only slightly when the fish are already in the system for a longer period of time. Take into account that when you bought fish in a pet store or even ordered them online, god knows what they've been through and to be dropped into water that is so different from what they are used to, just messes them up.

I have 18 tanks at the moment and 9 of them are currently filled with Apistogramma species and I only had to quarataine 1 specific fish and he is doing awesome. What I find most important after transport is acclimating them for your tank. I use the dropping method and I do not use bags. I take a small crate or container and dim the lights to where the fish will not be alarmed as much. Then I slowly drip water through a air hoze and make sure the drip rate is slow, you do not want it running. While you are doing this, take the temperture into account. If they have been transported for a longer period of time, you first want to put the transport bag into your tank without opening the bag, leave it there for 20 to 30 minutes with the lights on your tank OFF. Leave the fish, leave the tank and go do something else, leave them completely alone so that they do not get scared by movement and hands reaching down.

Once you have them acclimated to the temperture and they are in a crate/container/bucket and you have your drip running walk away again and leave it for an hour. Remember, do not use a bag, give them space to swim and sit on the bottom, I have specially designed crates that hold 20 liters of water if needed and the crates are all around black just so that the acclimation process is in a dark enviorment.

After an hour you should check the fish. You wont be able to see their true state anyways, since they are stressed... But the hour of rest should have calmed them down atleast a bit.

Now comes the most important part of the entire process... Never ever transfer water from the drip bucket into your tank The water in the drip bucket is transport water and your aquarium water and contains bad stuff that you never ever want in your tank. In worst cases the damage will never be resolved because some paracites/bacteria and viruses go into your substrate and it will be in your tank forever, until you completely clean it out and replace everything. The fish won't nessusarily be effected at first but when you have spikes in your water values the fish become more vulnerable to all sorts of things and that is when the bad stuff in your tank hits them hardest, and then its too late.

Transfer your fish from your drip bucket with a net, catch them and transfer them to your tank, do this with a steady hand and don't rush it. Fish can take a beating... If they can survive airfreight flights, they can survive transfer to a new tank.

When you have transfered the fish to your tank without transfering water from the drip bucket, leave the fish alone... Do not worry about water dripping from your hand or from your net... That wont be the thing to worry about.

When the fish are in the tank, leave them alone, do not feed them and leave the light off until the next day when it is a normal time for the lights to turn on. Start feeding slowly, very small amounts and watch if they all eat. Eating is a good sign. Feel free to feed them multiple times a day, but always very small amounts. I use granulated fish food and I dip the tip of my finger in water and only feed them a finger tip, I am not talking about your entire upper piece of your finger... But a really small amount.

Other advise I can give anyone who starts out with Apistogramma species is, start with 1 pair and don't do it for fry. Enjoy them and expect nothing from them. When your fish are happy and strong, they will breed 9 out of 10 times reguardless of water conditions... It is actually the eggs that have the hardest time hatching, not the fish breeding.

I would also consider not putting Apistogramma's in a heavily planted tank with Co2, unless you are running a high end system that is computer controlled and not replying on valves and cheap pet store systems. This might sound harsh but it kills tanks rapidly. You however have alternatives to Co2 and that is to use bottled fertiliser, I have great success with the one from Sera and one from Easy Life. Don't go over the top, keep it simple and don't flood your system with all kinds of chemicals.

Aquarium hobby requires patience and practice. We all lost fish and we all make mistakes, we all had deceases and we all had all of these experiences. It comes with the hobby and no matter how long you've been keeping fish, fish die because they are fragile creatures in a world of giants... Some of them are just not strong enough and they also find their way to our tanks.

If you keep to the basics you will go a long way. Stick with what works and do not go over the top just because some dude on a forum said he had awesome experiences. Sometimes people on the internet post comments out of excitement when they tried something new... and that is what you see... but you rarely see how that turned out after a month and the whole thing fell flat on its ass.

Remember, fish keeping is simple... we just like to make it sound way more complicated then it really is.

Anyways... I wrote a chapter of a book down by now... I hope my advise will help you a bit and hopefully you will be able to keep Apistogramma's in the future with greater success and enjoyment.

Greetz,

ADC Nederland

 

[uberape]

I personally think that diy systems can never produce toxic levels of c02 unless you have a ridiculous number of reactors, but they are ill advised given that they fluctuate levels of co2 and that causes algae. If you have a bubble counter, remain always vigilant, test C02 levels regularly and have a good system of replacing the bottle you are ok, if not i would discontinue it. The liquid organic carbon is more controllable, but wont help all plant types to be successful.