Illness?

[whnighswonger]

Hey guys so i had 2 apistos cacatuoides in a 10 gallon a male orng flash and female dbl red.
They were healthy eating flirting (not spawning, cant find the right apisto cave at my LFS gotta order/make one) but regardless they were thriving for months.
2 weeks ago my female started acting lethargic but she was eating and eager to eat, and then i found her dead about a week after i noticed her symptoms she died, i didnt think much of it because she was eating a bunch.
Now fast forward two weeks, i notice a big cut in his tail fin (possibly from flirting near the wood or plants my guess) and he started acting lethargic. Then he stopped eating, he used to come up to and eat from my tweezers when i fed bloodworms...
Anyways he stopped eating but looked SUPER bloated, like he just chowed down.
Couple days later he died
Water parameters are good...
Ph: 6.5-6.8
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: >20

any advice would help
Tank also has
7 pygmy corys
4 otos
5 ember tetras
Heavily planted tank too

 

[MacZ]

Little disclaimer: It's almlost impossible to determine the cause of death of a fish in hindsight, except it had textbook symptoms of a known disease. So take this theory with a grain of salt.

The swollen body points to bacterial infection, which is common in Apistogramma if the water quality is less than optimal. What bacteria specifically is absolutely impossible to determine.

Your stocking list is quite extensive for a 10 gallon, even with good filtration. The Nitrate levels point to too few/small waterchanges.

Did you feed them anything besides bloodworms? Bloodworms are nutritional aequivalent of fast food for fish.

What do you mean by heavily planted? Picture of the tank would be great.

Did you get all fish from the same source? Have you lost any of the others before or after purchasing the Apistogramma?

Were there any signs of fighting before the female died?

 

[whnighswonger]

I did get all of the fish from the same source
Only death was a corydora from old age (about 2 years old)
No fighting, just courtship from what i saw
Water changes i do 25-30% every week, i think i need to clean my filter media, havent done that in a month or two and that may be contributing to the nitrate level.
I also feed freeze dried brine shrimp API sinking pellets and fluval bug bites
Blood worms are a treat 2-3 times a week.
Doing a big water change today, it was tank maintenance day already so i’ll just do a bug 50% water change.
the newer female i got a couple weeks ago is thriving in the tank so far. Very active always picking lil bits of food/plants very explorative, the original femal was pretty skinny when i first got her, i’m thinking the first two i got may have been a bad batch.

 

[MacZ]

I did get all of the fish from the same source
Only death was a corydora from old age (about 2 years old)
No fighting, just courtship from what i saw
Water changes i do 25-30% every week, i think i need to clean my filter media, havent done that in a month or two and that may be contributing to the nitrate level.
I also feed freeze dried brine shrimp API sinking pellets and fluval bug bites
Blood worms are a treat 2-3 times a week.
Doing a big water change today, it was tank maintenance day already so i’ll just do a bug 50% water change.
the newer female i got a couple weeks ago is thriving in the tank so far. Very active always picking lil bits of food/plants very explorative, the original femal was pretty skinny when i first got her, i’m thinking the first two i got may have been a bad batch.

Corydoras pygmaeus can get up to 8 years as far as I know.

To lower your nitrate levels the only way is waterchanges. YOu might think about doing 50% each week. Especially with dwarf cichlids keeping nitrates low is essential. The filtermedia should only be cleaned when it's about to clogg. Otherwise it should be left alone. All the gunk is beneficial bacteria. Question about nitrates, do you have nitrates in the tap or do you use fertilizers by any chance?

You might want to expand your foodvariety with live and frozen foods. Safest are white moskito larvae, brine shrimp and daphnia. Live or frozen is both fine. Bloodworms on the other hand are rather a treat for once a week tops, rather 1-2x a month. They are nutritionally all bit good.

Yeah, 50% waterchange is always a good thing.

And finally a tank that is actually quite heavily planted. You won't believe how often people say heavily planted and turns out a hand full of frogbit and one Waterweed has reached the surface.

Bad batch... A. cacatuoides are starting to go the same route as M. ramirezi. Overbred, overproduced, sickly fish with a bad immune system. So probably...

Keep up the waterchanges, vary the food more and think about getting a bigger tank longterm if you want to stock up the Apistos. Everything else looks great.

 

[MacZ]

Another tipp for maintaining good waterquality: Do 1 or 2 fast days and otherwise feed once a day.
The fish need very little food, this will not hurt them.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

And finally a tank that is actually quite heavily planted. You won't believe how often people say heavily planted and turns out a hand full of frogbit and one Waterweed has reached the surface.

To lower your nitrate levels the only way is water changes.

The plants will massively reduce the fixed nitrogen levels in the water, plant/microbe nitrification is potentially an order of magnitude more efficient than "microbe only" nitrification, if you have enough plants. A lot of the reason for this is the extra oxygen production that plants produce, and nitrification is most often limited by oxygen, it is an oxygen intensive process.

The filtermedia should only be cleaned when it's about to clogg. Otherwise it should be left alone. All the gunk is beneficial bacteria.

I'm going to disagree with that one as well, it is back to oxygen.

....more to follow

cheers Darrel

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
.............. More to follow continued.

I don't see plants as an alternative to water changes, I see both of them as essential in maintaining water quality.

One alleged advantage of having an extensive biofilm is that you can get both aerobic nitrification and anaerobic denitrification occurring in the same filter. I don't recommend this because you need a short spatial separation between aerobic nitrification and anaerobic denitrification and you run the risk that the whole filter media becomes anaerobic. I actually want my filter to be a "nitrate factory" because I can use the plants to take the nitrate up, what I don't want is levels of ammonia and nitrite rising.

You can avoid this by not letting the biofilm impede flow and ensuring that the filter media always remains oxygenated.

cheers Darrel

 

[MacZ]

Hi all,
.............. More to follow continued.

I don't see plants as an alternative to water changes, I see both of them as essential in maintaining water quality.

One alleged advantage of having an extensive biofilm is that you can get both aerobic nitrification and anaerobic denitrification occurring in the same filter. I don't recommend this because you need a short spatial separation between aerobic nitrification and anaerobic denitrification and you run the risk that the whole filter media becomes anaerobic. I actually want my filter to be a "nitrate factory" because I can use the plants to take the nitrate up, what I don't want is levels of ammonia and nitrite rising.

You can avoid this by not letting the biofilm impede flow and ensuring that the filter media always remains oxygenated.

cheers Darrel

We're somewhat saying the same with different word in this case. Or rather: I describe how it works practically and you explain WHY it's done that way. Completely with you.