Male A. Viejta with clamped fins glancing off stuff HELP!

[yianniem]

Hi all, I have been lurking for a while gaining knowlege and finally need your help and collective wisdom.
I came home from a weekend away and couldn't find my male Viejta / McMasteri anywhere. He's usually swims up to the glass to say HI. When he eventually did show himself he was slightly dark with his dorsal, anal, pelvic and caudal fins clamped. He immediately started glancing off the plants in the tank. None of the other fish are affected.
I noticed it on Sunday night and have been performing 30% water changes daily and treating with Melafix but have not seen any improvement. His sick behaviour has not changed. Its not ich or any other outwardly visible disease and if it was a toxin or pH I would imagine other fish would be affected. Any help would be much appreciated.
Yianni

Some background:
10 gallon planted tank with oak leaves and peat, 2 females A. viejta, 2 panda cories, 1 otto, 2 madagascar rainbows (moved), 5 white cloud mountain minnows(moved).
pH normally 7.0 was up to 7.4
GH and KH 4 degrees
ammonia 0.5 ppm
nitrite 0.0 ppm
temp 80 degrees F

 

[farm41]

You definately have a problem with any ammonia reading in your tank. Ammonia should always be 0 in a cycled tank. How long has the tank been setup?

In any case water changes are in order, I would start with 2 25% water changes today, and 2 more tomorrow. Then keep an idea on the ammonia.

 

[Randall]

Apisto with Clamped Fins

Dear Yianni,

Matt and I are on the same page here. Ammonia levels in a cycled tank should be zero, and water changes are in order. Because the pH measures on the alkaline side of the scale, ammonia can be especially dangerous.

Clamped fins and "glancing" are consistent with external parasites, not a bacterial infection, so Melafix is of no value here. Because of its anti-bacterial properties, Melafix may be suppressing the very nitrifying bacteria needed to bring the ammonia levels back down to zero.

Rather than treat your fish with an anti-parasitic medication, it may be better to perform the frequent partial water changes that Matt suggests and get the ammonia under control. Adding medication at this time could contribute to even higher ammonia levels, because medication tends to kill nitrifying bacteria as it kills parasites. Water changes will also help to flush parasites from the system.

Good luck!

Randall Kohn

 

[fishgeek]

just a snip more , if you can use acidic water and slowly lower pH that will give some protection(ionised/unionised ammonia ratio) whilst clearing the problem

andrew

 

[yianniem]

Thanks for the replies all.

I just wanted to give an update. He is now hiding out in the back of a cave. Not really doing anything unless provoked and then darting and rubbing while still clamped.

The water changes don't seem to be helping as I am still getting the same readings. I think I may have found out what the cause was, although it's just a guess. The filter was partially blocked by some peat reducing flow and causing the bio wheel to stop turning, this has been remedied and I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I have stopped the Melafix and haven't added any meds at all, I'm hoping that the addition of pH lowered water will help.

What I can't understand is why he was the only affected fish.

yianni

 

[Zapisto]

please test the water you use for water change .
if you have a change use Pure RO not more than 25% to slowly bring the PH down and he amania to 0

the prescrition matt tell is a nice and smoothly way to do it.
but if you make your wter change with poor water , this will never help and you will still continue have the same reading.

check to see if you dont have any fish body somewhere.... :roll:

 

[farm41]

The biowheel not moving will not be the cause of ammonia readings.

Do you have city water? Does it use chlorine or chloramine? Are you using a conditioner? Or outgasing the water in someway.

 

[yianniem]

I am using tap water which I assume is chlorinated and use aquasafe to treat it. Thats all that I do other than match the temps.

 

[yianniem]

Just a follow up, my male died . I still can't get the ammonia under control. pH is down to 6.8.
Is it possible that too much plant material decaying in the tank would cause this kind of situation or is is generally just attributed to overstocking and overfeeding.

 

[farm41]

Dacaying plants do cause ammonia too, you need to be cleaning out anything that is dead or dying, be it fish or plant.

 

[yianniem]

What am I supposed to do with the oak leaves and peat? I am adding them to lower pH but if they add to the ammonia this seems to be a catch-22. How long can they be safely kept in a tank before they become toxic?

 

[farm41]

The dried leaves and peat aren't breaking down into nitrogenous coumpounds, dead and rotting plants will though.

Are the leaves you are using dried and completely brown? Or, do they still have some green on them?

 

[yianniem]

The leaves were totally dry and collected after they fell. I don't think it was the leaves, possibly the plants need to be pruned.

However it is a moot point as I have had catastrophic losses all three apistos have died . I also lost a panda cory. Post mortem they appeared to have something which gave them a very odd wide-eyed look.
I got the ammonia under control two days ago using ammo-chips but it wasn't enough, the two females died without the symptoms shown by the male.

Time to try again with this tank. I guess I'll keep it running for a while and monitor the water params and see if I can figure out what happened to cause the ammonia to rise.

 

[Christine-FishGrrl]

keep in mind that if you're doing a lot of water changes and your city uses chloramine and not chlorine (chloramine is MUCH more stable so cities are switching to it), then if you use something made just for chlorine, you are left with ammonia. If you use something like Amquel which works with chloramine as well, you will get a false positive test for ammonia. Products like Amquel bind the ammonia to a non-toxic form (ammonium) but it's still there and most test kits can't differentiate between the two.

If your apisto's had parasite problems, you need to make sure the parasites are dead before adding more fish.

 

[Dan724]

hello, I'm having the same problem as yiammiem, although I don't have ammoina issue, is it external parasites? what should I look for? thanks in advance for your help. This forum is very informative?

 

[Dan724]

What about using ammo lock for ammonia issues?

 

[farm41]

That doesn't take care of the problem, only masks it. A tank needs to be properly cycled and remove all dead and dying matter.