worms growing out of the head, help!!!!

[boydvd]

hi all. i've had a lot of fatalities in recent days. i lost 4 seemingly healthy apistogramma and about 12 neon and rummy nose tetras.

i am real worried.

at first it hough it was a breeding apisto female who killed everyone, now i think it's disease!!

my guppy has pop eye and a rummy nose tetra looks like it has a worm growing from his head!!!

what do i need to do and treat it?

here is a pic of a rummy nose tetra. they look like they have raised scales. sorry about the bad pic. also looks like a worm growing from his head.

is ths becuase i feed live black worms?

please help!

 

[boydvd]

here's the pic & my ammonia is nil, 9GH, 3 Kh, PH7

 

[icecube]

not clear from the pic, but if its like a worm hanging from its head, it coud be either argulus or a leech, just add a very minute quantity of potassium permanganate to the tank, just 1 very very small crystal will be enough to get rid of the argulus or the leech, try removing by using a tweezer if possible,
but adding potassium permangante will remove if any more are present in the tank

 

[Apistomaster]

The Rummy Nose sounds like it has the parasitic copepod, Lernea, attached.
I think that is unrelated to the cause(s) of the deaths of your other fish.

 

[boydvd]

thanks... the LFS said the parasite was the least of my problems. He reckons it's bacterial overlaod from my planted tank. i've reduced the co2 output from my tank. treated with tetracycline.

some tetra have still died but the fish look stabilised. I lost a german blue ram and a panduro female as well which was very distressing. don't know if it will be cheap or easy to replace the panduro.

The only problem now is I have a nice current clearing up the debris and not settling around the plants (which was killing them and addding to the bacterial overload). However, strong currents aren't good for apisto's right? not sure what to do then? the platies eat the plants and poop everywhere and i think they are adding to the problem too.

 

[Mud Pie Mama]

Sorry to hear you're having such trouble.

I'm going to go "out on a limb here" and say: I don't think your LFS knows what they are talking about. I have some 12+ tanks . . . and I would rate them all as heavily planted. If your planted tank is doing well and growing tons of new leaves this is one of the healthiest tanks you can run. Now if the tank is unbalanced, too much lights, too little plant mass and overrun with algae so the plants are dying, then they could be a source of the problem.

I have never really lost fish in a planted tank once they have been with me past the first month to six weeks. If they go in healthy, they stay healthy. *(Now cichlid territorial and breeding aggression is a whole different problem. I have lost fish to fighting, when I didn't get the stocking right. BUT you see the wound - or bites.)

Unfortunately, the one instance where I dosed tetracycline into a planted tank, it ruined a ton of plants. The better choices for meds in a planted tank is EM for bacterial infections. Although, the only infection I've successfully treated in Apistogrammas has been fin rot brought on by shipping stress.

Perhaps if you gave some more details on your tanks, more persons could offer some specific advice? Are these new fish - or fish you've had for a while? Have you kept them QT'd before intoducing into a mixed tank? What size is the tank and how many tankmates are involved?

 

[ed seeley]

I've gotta agree with the above here. Sounds like a convenient way to sell you more meds.

I think, if anything, you may have fed too much and got quite a lot of waste in the substrate? (Sorry if this is worng but that was my first thought) If I remember rightly Blackworms can bury down into the substrate right where the fish can't eat them? I'd start by trying to clean the substrate in an area that isn't too heavily planted and see how dirty it actually is. If lots of dirt comes out then you might need to give the whole tank a good clean and maybe even start again with new substrate and have a brand new start. What substrate are you using?

 

[boydvd]

oh goodness.. i thought i had the answer but now some more possibilities. i have a 4 ft Juwel tank. laterite subtrate with 2mm gravel on top. it's got standard t8 lighting (i've ordered an additional 2 t5 lighting unit for this tank). i bubble Co2 at 3 bubbles per second. i've since reduced this to one bubble.

the plants grow very quickly. i have balck beard algae only on a small mini pennywort plant. i do not have any rampant alge growth. i feed plants with seachem flourish.

i have an eheim external 950lph and the internal juwel canister filter.

i did weekly water changes. probably 8%. treat the water with sera aquatan.

i had 16 rummy nose. 15 neon tetras. 3 small bristlenose. 6 platies and 4 guppies. 3 rams lots of tiny livebearer babies. 20ish.

the tanks is about 2 months old. the 4 cacatuoides was bought froma breeder and put in the main tank, not quarantined. they all looked healthy until everything started dying. i had low ammonia and neutral ph and low gh and kh.

it's funny you questioned overfeeding as i had decided to reduce the feeding and a few days later the fish start dying.

hope this is enough detail for you to advise on.

thanks

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I agree with Ed and Mud Pie Mamma, as long as your plants are actively growing planted tanks are much more stable, have less nitrate, more biofiltration etc. I do however think that this would be the same if all your plants were "algae", we consider it undesirable but actually the green algae are doing exactly the same job as the higher plants, so this is purely personal preference.

I would increase the water changes, turn the CO2 off, and stop the Seachem Flourish until your tank stabilises. I like to leave my tanks set up for a long time (several months) before I add any fish, so I wonder if the combination of the fish load and tetracycline has reduced the water quality sufficiently to cause the deaths? Also not sure about SERA aquatan, as you say you have low hardness and pH already? I try not to add anything to the water, unless I know exactly what it is doing, and why I've added it. In my opinion the nearer you can get to pure H2O for your water changes the better.

I know you have a lot of filtration, but I'm not a great fan of either internal or external power filters, I prefer either a wet/dry trickle, a Hamburg matten filter or a big chunky powerhead powered sponge filter. I'm pretty sure that the overtank planted trickle filters I used to use, (before my wife threatened to either maim, kill or leave if I didn't stop the noise of dripping water), are the most effective biological filters.

cheers Darrel

 

[ed seeley]

I'm not a million milers away from Darryl's assessment about the benefits of actively growing plants but I'd take a different approach to solve your issues.

Your BBA is caused by the drop in CO2 levels so I'd keep the CO2 up and use a drop checker with 4dKH solution to ensure the CO2 stays at 30ppm.

Basically I'd give the tank a good clean and do some large water changes (30% -50% a week). Make sure you clean the filters too as they can hold some large amounts of debris too.

 

[boydvd]

anyhoo, had to move the sub male and female panduro into the main 4 foot tank with all the problems. female died a few days ago. the male looks like he's not long fo this world either. PH KH GH AMMONIA NITIRE Are all fine. i did an iron test tonitgh and it appears my iron levels are way off the chart. this may be what is killign them. i will geta copper test too tomorrow. but i think it is the iron that is the culprit!
i think it's iron posioning....
you see my base substrate is laterite which is iron based clay. i have heating cable in the substrate and i was dosing with seachem flourish as well. this leads me to think i have posioned my fish with too much iron!!

i have turned the heating off so it doesn't circulate water into he substrate and expose the main water with the iron.

i immediately treated with aquatan to bind the heavy metals and hopefully the iron too. i think this may be it!!

options are to strip the substrate and relay it without the laterite. i wanna put in black river pebbles so this may give me the excuse to do it. the laterite made the water red and cloudy which i never liked. does all this make sense? i hope this iron is the issue with my fish!!

i will get a copper test tomorrow so will try to rule out this possibilty. i've got a co2 test on order form germany whih is taking its sweet time to get to me, hope to know f this is causing me issues with co2 overload.

i have some oak leaves in all tanks but they dont seem to reduce th ph at all. wondering it i need to put in heaps.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Boydvd wrote "i did an iron test tonitgh and it appears my iron levels are way off the chart. this may be what is killign them. i will geta copper test too tomorrow. but i think it is the iron that is the culprit!"

I'm not sure this is right, or how much iron you have to have in a soluble form before it becomes toxic to soft water fish, but I would assume it is a very large amount indeed. In fact keeping, even low levels of, iron in solution is one of the major problems in growing plants hydroponically.

However this would be one of my reasons for stopping adding anything to the water. Many plants (at present I'm growing Java Moss, Java Fern, Salvinia, Water sprite, Potamogeton gayii, Cryptocorynes, Nymphae, Bolbitis, Anubias and probably another 10 or so that I have forgotten) will grow slowly without any regular addition of nutrients (or CO2) as long as they have sufficient light. I really do suggest a 50% water change with good quality water, followed by 10% water change a day until the tank water conditions, and it's occupants, are stable

If you have stable water, but with little in the way of dissolved compounds or ions in it, there is much less that go wrong. The analogy I would have for the difference between low tech and high tech aquarium keeping is it's like driving a car - low tech is a little old lady in a small car doing 30mph and hi tech is a F1 driver in a sports car going at the absolute limit for car and driver. Most of the time they will both get to their destination, and the sports car will get there first, but if either car or driver fails it's likely to be much more spectacular in the hi tech/sports car case.

cheers Darrel

 

[electric eel]

thats a good analogy darrel!i think K.I.S.S. is a good principle to apply to aquarium husbandry.i never see or hear any of the longtime sucessful breeders or fishkeepers talk (or post on the forums) about testing their water.in fact i've had a couple really good breeders(we have a guy in our club that seems to be able to breed about anything in his tapwater-well over 200 species) that they NEVER test their water.i rarely have problems and when i do its always because i have gotten lax(sometimes very lax) on my water changes.

 

[boydvd]

that is very interesting. i heard about this breeder in melbourne who had over 400 tanks. bred everything and all he did was put kitchen salt in his water. soudns far fetched, but he used t run the LFS when i was a boy.

i have turned down the co2 and may turn it off. what a waste of money.

 

[Hassles]

No Money Wasted

that is very interesting. i heard about this breeder in melbourne who had over 400 tanks. bred everything and all he did was put kitchen salt in his water. soudns far fetched, but he used t run the LFS when i was a boy.

i have turned down the co2 and may turn it off. what a waste of money.

I would not say that your CO2 system was or is a waste of money. At the moment you have some dramas and in order to make this right it is best that you cut back to basics - get your tank clean and stable, sort out the problems and then slowly begin to make any desired changes to achieve your aims. The cacatuoides you unfortunately lost were mine and the remaining fish are happy, healthy and rapidly maturing - I cite this for the benefit of those who have been gracious enough to respond to your posts. Your passion is obvious enough and I am convinced you have the hallmarks of an excellent aquarist but......one step at a time. Your recent probems have obviously been quite despiriting but learn what you can and write another page in your book of experience. When you breed the panduros Ill provide the wine ;-)

sincere regards

Glenn

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Boydvd, I think Glenn and electric eel are right, there is no single right way to do it. Some people on this forum (Ed comes to mind) keep fantastic high tech set ups, with great fish and plants, but my suspicion is most of us don't.

In my case I'm too busy/lazy and I don't have enough attention to detail to do what Ed does, and I'm not sure it would ever work for me. I'm also pretty mean with my money (and poor).

I like KISS ("keep it simple stupid") - silica sand substrate (play or pool filter sand), sponge filters, lots of plants and water changes. Simple kit is cheap, plants grow to give you more plants, and I'm lucky that I've got access to lots of free rain water and free (live food), it really is as simple as there is just much less to go wrong.

I was a very bad fish keeper in my first go, because I didn't know what I was doing, or why I was doing it, and there was little literature and no-one with experience to ask. In fact it was such a dispiriting experience that I didn't keep fish again for over 20 years. Hopefully I now understand a lot more about fish (this forum is is a wonderful thing), and I also understand a little more about ecology, plants, water quality and biological filtration.

The only thing I have spent money on is lighting, because my experience as a botanist tells me that adequate light is the fundamental requirement for plant growth. Having said that I use T5 "under-cabinet" lights, home made reflectors and natural daylight 6500K tubes, giving me the same light output as an IBar, but for 1/4 of the cost.

cheers Darrel

 

[boydvd]

i think i need to learn mor epatience and not to hide behind equipment and hi tech stuff... i've tunred off the co2 and substrate heater. back to basics.

i've been doing water changes and was wondering what i need to do to get the iron level down. it is still reading above optimal levels. the test kit is newly opened so i wouldn't think it was expired. i'm at my witts end here and a bit disheartened. some of my lovely plants have suffered from reduction in co2.... i order additonal lights from germany but they are taking their sweet time to arrive.

apart from iron i don't know what is happening and think i might buy a ram to test in the tank before putting nay hard to replace apisto in there.

i'm running out of room and thinking i should pinch one of those broadcast equeipment racks form work to set up a rack of fish tanks rather than broadcast VTRs

 

[Apistomaster]

I can't say enough about the merits of simplified Dwarf Cichlid breeding tanks.
The pool sand is a great substrate and keeping a couple sponge filters completes the basics.
I have been using a single tube Nova T-5 lamp fixture but it appears to be discontinued unfortunately. It has connector wires which allowed plugging in a series of these fixture up to 8 in a row. A 36 inch T-5, 10,000K light is sufficient for a 40 gal breeder planted with Sword plants and Hornwort so for a 21 watt light it was very efficient and economical.

The high tech, CO2 supplemented tank with intense lighting is best reserved for when you want to get serious about having an aquatic garden in a main show tank. For just basic breeding and grow out tanks it is so much easier and efficient to go with the KISS approach.
I have found that www.fostersmith.com sells a very good line of pedestal type sponge filters. They are Azoo Oxygen Plus Bio-filters.
The model #9 is great for 10 gal or smaller tanks and for 20 to 40 gal I use the #6. I like to use 2 filters and alternate cleaning the sponges to prevent disruption of the nitrogen cycle. These are very reasonably priced and they sell replacement sponges very cheaply.

I have never had to deal with a high iron content but I don't think it is intrinsically all that bad. I think fish can tolerate iron pretty well unlike copper.
Your idea of trying GBR is a good one since they are a good indicator species for testing water suitability. In fact, they may not be the best since GBR are naturally short lived and delicate under the best of conditions.
I would recommend trying Apistogramma borelli and A. trifasciatus over GBR although you may have to order them on line.
Experiment with some different palnts and eventually I think you will find some that do well for you without adding fertilizers. Water Sprite and Hornwort are very adaptable as a starting point. I think you would also have luck with Sagittaria sublata pusillus, the dwarf Sag.

 

[boydvd]

Thanks Apistomaster,

the thing about trying GBR is they are relatively cheap and available. borellis and trifasciata are very difficult to source in Melbourne, australia, so are not a good choice for me to use.


also do you have comment on the colour of pool sand? do you use the white stuff? i'm wondering if the white sand bothers them and am considering a swith to a darker subtrate like small black river pebbles of 2mm. I find the plants have problems staying rooted in the white sandy substrate i have.

 

[Mud Pie Mama]

I can't say enough about the merits of simplified Dwarf Cichlid breeding tanks.
The pool sand is a great substrate and keeping a couple sponge filters completes the basics.



The high tech, CO2 supplemented tank with intense lighting is best reserved for when you want to get serious about having an aquatic garden in a main show tank.

As we Yanks like to say: "Bingo!!!" Or, "Ditto & x 2!"

I really do love the plants, and I love the fish too. So this is exactly how I have divided my tanks.

My four largest tanks are my display tanks. Where a variety of plants displayed to make a great picture is the goal. I use higher light levels - one high light w/ CO2 injection, the others medium light supplemented w/ Excel for a liquid CO2 boost. The CO2 is not a waste and allows me to grow a phenomenal number of submerged plants. I keep a community of fish in these tanks, including some Dwarfs for show, but breeding in not key here.

My dozen small and medium size tanks cater to the Dwarf Cichlids. I follow the protocol exactly as Apistomaster has stated. Pool filter sand substrate; low light; sponge filters; 4 - 5 easy plant species; and very, very light fertilization. The dither fish are just a few. And if the pairs/trios are good parents, fry have a great chance to make it.