Sick Agassizii! help!!!

[Fishman11]

Hi,

First post here. One of my female agassizi's has become withdrawn since my last water change yesterday. She just sits in a small space behind the filter at the surface of the water.

She did come out for some frozen bloodworm this evening but when she was done went straight back to her spot afterwards.
Her gills are red which I'm a little worried about too. All advice welcome!

Thanks

 

[gerald]

Not much info there for diagnostic use. Cause(s) could be anything -- infectious or non-infectious disease, water chemistry, poor diet, aggression, ...

 

[Fishman11]

Not much info there for diagnostic use. Cause(s) could be anything -- infectious or non-infectious disease, water chemistry, poor diet, aggression, ...

Sorry I am new to the site! I have two females, one male, 12 tetras and five ottos in a 70 l tank.

She has always been the weaker of the two females - less colour etc. Had her about two months.

Water parameters
Ammonia 0.25
nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 40 ppm ( I know this is a little high but won't budge).

With this water change, the only thing I did different was clean the filter sponge in some aquarium water as it was filthy. Added some bacteria balls to filter.

Does any of this help?

 

[gerald]

I would add fast-growing plants like frogbit, duckweed, salvinia, water sprite, guppy-grass, etc to lower the nitrate. Dont know if high nitrate is the cause of ill-health, but lowering it may help. Is your tap water nitrate that high?

 

[Mike Wise]

If your tank isn't suitably decorated, it's a bit small for a trio of apistos. It appears that the dominant female has driven the sub-dominant female away from her territory - in this case, the entire tank bottom. Apistos are bottom-dwelling species. Those found at the surface (and aren't oxygen-starved) are trying to get away from the the territories of dominant fish. For apistos, this is usually the top of the tank. This is why I recommend adding pieces of floating black PBS tubing or dense clumps of floating plant in tanks with newly introduced apistos. They are excellent refuges for these non-territorial fish.