Female Viejita In A Bad Way.

[Andrew C]

I got a pair of Vieijtas 9 months ago and they were full grown when i got them.
For the first three months i kept them in a 10G with a power head and a sponge filter on it, i then upgraded there tank to a 28G (4*1*1) in early December, it is filitered by two powerheads with a sponge on each of them (set at the lowest flow rate), and they have the tank to themselves.
I do 50% water changes weekly and feed them twice a day with frozen bloodworm and brineshrimp.
The tanks readings are: Ph 7.5, Kh & Gh 3, Ammomia 0, Nitrite 0 and Nitrate 0.

The first signs started to appear about a month ago with the Viejita female, and as i had simular problem with my Nijjensi pair (the male died, but the female made a full recovery and is now living happily in my cory tank / look under Dying Of Old Age Or Bacterial Problem), so i have been waiting to see if Viejita female pulls through, which is not looking too good.
One day she is nearly black in colour, and the next day she is back to her normal colour, but this keeps happening every couple of days. She now only eats a couple of bits of food each feeding time, whereas she used to chase the male away to get all the food to herself.
The past couple of days i have noticed that she has bloated up, but it is not dropsy as her scales are not standing out, and she has no others signs of infection (fungus, parasites, stringy poo).
Now today, she is hardly swimming, just rests on the bottom, then starts to fall onto her side, swims a few inches and dos the whole thing again.

The female used to be so aggressive towards the male, only the larger tank helped her settle down and not beat the male up so much, she was always very active, but now things are not looking so good.

Any help please ?

Andrew.

 

[Discus Man]

9 months, and you have no idea how old it was when you bought it... it could be old age.
My male Bit (two and a half years old) passed away bout a month ago due to (I guess) old age and it had similar symptoms except the darkness.
First symptom was failing eyesight when the male would have to try several times to pick up food off the substrate. That lasted for a few months then a bacterial infection hit him in the gut. It went away by itself until it hit again for the final time and I put him into a jar in the dark for him to just sleep himself off to the fish bowl in the sky.
As always, look for anything that may be causing undue stress on the fish, but 9 months to me sounds like a reasonable period of time to say it wasn't poor care...

 

[Andrew C]

Well, i came back into tonight after being out for an hour or so and the female Viejita was dead.

I forgot to mention in my earlier post, another thing that appeared this week, is she looked as if she had laboured breathing.

Would too high a PH do this, or is it old age, or bacteria again ?

Andrew.

 

[mk_ultra]

I have had males suffer through this. At first I thought gill flukes. But then I read something about how sensitive they were to nitrates and stress.
I would drop your ph though. Try to hit 6 or lower.

 

[Bissot_J]

my male viejita died after 3 years and half.

he died quitely with no symptoms , just tired
he was in very good shape just tired and you can see that.