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  1. gerald

    sexing borellii or steel blue

    You're lucky to have found steel-blue females. The farms that produce them make mostly males.
  2. gerald

    Dr Oto

    No, but Oto's will feast on dead fish, so it's not unreasonable that they'd eat dead tissue from a live fish, if the fish will sit still. Great observation!
  3. gerald

    Water Parameters for Breeding

    The far-southern Apistos (borellii, trifasciata, commbrae, and others) from the Parana-La Plata River basin should do fine with 4 to 5 dGH. The species that are sensitive to excessive hardness are generally the more northern ones from the Amazon and Orinoco basins.
  4. gerald

    HELP: Growth on fins

    Whatever it is (bacteria maybe), it was likely growing inside his body too, damaging internal organs. If it was just fins he would not have died so quickly.
  5. gerald

    Dicrossus maculatus bloating issue

    Cookie -- What is your GH water hardness? There's a possibility high Ca hardness might cause kidney problems that lead to bloating?
  6. gerald

    Is this lockjaw?

    Remove her before she dies, so that other fish don't start nibbling on her body and catch it, in case its something infectious.
  7. gerald

    Soften water with chlorhydric acid

    HCl will lower pH but it won't soften the water. Also, TDS is not a measure of hardness. You might have high TDS and low hardness, depending on which dissolved ions are present. Ca+ and Mg+ are the ions that create hardness.
  8. gerald

    Fundulopanchax gardneri gardneri (Lyretail Killie) w/ Apisto?

    I think they'd do okay and pretty much ignore each other. Obviously you're not trying to breed Apistos, with barbs and Garra in the tank. Having said that, I once kept a lone male gardneri with a lone male Lamprologus speciosus and they fought much of the time; it seemed to be their form of...
  9. gerald

    Fundulopanchax gardneri gardneri (Lyretail Killie) w/ Apisto?

    I think they'd do okay and pretty much ignore each other. Obviously you're not trying to breed Apistos, with barbs and Garra in the tank. Having said that, I once kept a lone male gardneri with a lone male Lamprologus speciosus and they fought much of the time; it seemed to be their form of...
  10. gerald

    Suspected internal parasites ? 2nd opinion ?

    Could be bacterial infection, intestinal parasites, or both.
  11. gerald

    Heavy breathing D37

    There are many possible causes: Gill flukes, Camallanus worms, and Mycobacterium are some of the most common ones.
  12. gerald

    Does anyone know what is going on with my Apistos? I can’t find anything on google...

    I cant see the photos on imgur. But Mycobacterium or Camallanus are my first two wild guesses. Please delete your duplicate posts.
  13. gerald

    Nanochromis splendens WC

    I've had N. parilus, teugelsi, and transvestitus (decades ago) that got along well enough to spawn in 20 -30 gal tanks.
  14. gerald

    Dead Super Red Cacatuoides juvenile

    Just a wild guess, but maybe gorging on the granule food before it was fully soaked? You said he was the fastest eater of the bunch, right?
  15. gerald

    Nanochromis splendens WC

    Nope. The male attacked the female relentlessly every time I tried putting them together, even after she actively courted him through the glass in her adjacent tank. Female died first -- no obvious symptoms -- then the male a year later, with the typical West African cichlid bloat symptoms.
  16. gerald

    Dead Super Red Cacatuoides juvenile

    The internal bleeding suggests some kind of organ damage. I dont think aggression would cause that.
  17. gerald

    Newbie questions

    No missing scales or shredded fins? Maybe she didn't kill him, unless he died from exhaustion and stress from being chased. But I would expect some signs of external damage if she was the cause.
  18. gerald

    A. elizabethae in poor health

    Could also be bacterial ... possibly Mycobacterium. See Dr. Richmond Loh's recent video here, which explains the wide range of symptoms that Myco can cause: https://thefishvet.com/2019/03/12/is-your-fish-infected-with-mycobacteria/
  19. gerald

    Sick apisto female triple red. Advice needed

    Looks like an internal bacterial infection. They rarely recover, but Kanamycin might help.
  20. gerald

    Distilled water

    I use 100% tap for most species, and tapwater + rainwater mix for soft/acid-loving species. But my tap water is softer than yours: only 1 to 2 dGH (20 to 35 mg/L hardness as CaCO3). pH from my tap is high (around 8) because they add NaOH to prevent pipe corrosion, but that doesn't add any...
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