New Guy

[Tom S]

Hello

New to the forum, thought I would introduce myself. I just purchased a pair of A. baenschi to go in my 29 gallon S. American tank with a group of cardinal tetras, a trio of cory's, and a handful of shrimp.

At the moment the female is out and about, eating and exploring; but the male seems to be a bit more timid and is staying under cover. Hopefully he will start roaming in a day or two after getting a bit settled.

Right now I'm not overly preoccupied with breeding my fish, I bought them because I enjoy their appearance and attitudes. I am running the tank with sponge filter, so if anything happens I don't need to worry about the fry disappearing in the filter.

So that sums up my situation. I look forward to learning from the more experienced members of this forum and contributing where I am able

-Tom

 

[Tom S]

Well,

The male was dead when I checked the tank this morning. I think he may have been severely stressed at some point, he never left his hiding place.

 

[Mike Wise]

I'm sorry to hear this. Fortunately A. baenschi is regularly available. I do suggest that you have a quarantine tank and use it religiously. It is sad when I hear of a new fish that is added to an established community and the tank community is destroyed by some disease/parasite brought in by the new fish. Hopefully this does not happen to your tank. A quarantine tank is cheap insurance.

 

[Tom S]

Mike,

Thanks for the advice. These were the last two at the shop, so I was not very happy when I discovered him this morning. Thankfully, I called the shop and they said right away that they would replace it, and should be getting in a new shipment next week. Got my business after service like that.

I plan on setting up a quarantine tank, but am planning on moving in a few months, so I didn't want to go through the trouble right now. The fish looked healthy and active at the store, in fact all the fish I saw at the store were well taken care of.

 

[bigbird]

hope it works well for you and as we all in the forum state, get a quarantine tank even a very basic one....will save tears later..cheers jk

 

[Tom S]

Here is a photo of the tank. It's been set up for almost 3 months now, and the wood is looking pretty fuzzy. The shrimp are working on cleaning that up.

Here's the female. She's not timid at all. Comes right out front whenever she feels like it to see what is going on, and stands her own against the corys. Nice to see.

 

[Mike Wise]

The nice thing about a quarantine tank is its simplicity. All you need is a small, bare tank with an air-driven sponge filter and heater. No decorations needed other than a few short lengths of PVC pipe for hiding places; no lights. If a problem arises, it is easy to sterilize everything.

 

[Tom S]

Came home today and the female had died. I had noticed yesterday that she seemed listless and didn't want to eat, even though I placed pellets right in front of her.

I'm really hoping this is not something wrong with my tank. My tetras and cory's seem just fine, and in fact are growing and looking very healthy. The shrimp are doing fine, so the water quality can't be to bad. I'm at a loss here. Is it possible the cory's are stressing out the Apistogramma? They can be boisterous, but cichlids should be able to hold their own, shouldn't they? It's a planted tank with hiding places, and the fish didn't seem to be trying to hide behind the filter or heater or anything.

I think I may look into getting a bit more of a beginners Apistogramma, like Cacatuoides; or some Rams. Perhaps I will call the shop and see what they have in this week.

 

[Mike Wise]

I think that you need to first check your water conditions: pH, hardness, NH3/NH4+, NO2, and NO3. If these parameters are within acceptable ranges, then you can assume that the apistos were the problem. This is the reason to always quarantine any fish going into an already established community tank. I highly doubt that the corys had anything to do with the death of the apistos. BTW do you feed frozen or live foods? Wildcaught apistos take time to adjust to eating dry foods.

 

[Tom S]

I do feed flake and pellet food, but I was under the understanding that these were not wild caught fish. Next time I will make sure to check that out. Quarantine tanks are sounding better all the time. Going to dig out a 10 gallon and an aquaclear and see what I can do. Any recommendations about how to keep it cycled? Perhaps lots of cover and keep feeder shrimp for a steady supply of live food?

 

[Mike Wise]

The great thing about using a foam filter of foam insert, as do Aquaclear power filters, is that the foam can be quickly sterilized by boiling or microwaving the foam. Then it is just as quickly inoculated with good bacterial by squeezing a safe foam filter from a healthy tank into a container of old tank water. Cycle the 'dirty' water through the sterilized foam for a few minutes to absorb the bacteria. Presto! Instant filtration!