Rapidly breathing Congochromis

[raymond82]

Hi,

I had had two Congochromis females, one of them died recently and the other one now behaves similar to the one that died. She hides most of the time and she's breathing really rapidly. I tested for nitrite but it is not elevated (I had rapidly breathing fish in another tank and then nitrite was high and a water change cured it). I added some air flow with an airpump but the problem seems to persist.

The other fish look fine (two male Congochromis and a pair of Epiplatys olbrechtsi). I recently treated with a dewormer, they are up for the second treatment in a couple of days.

What could be the cause of this behavior? One of the males is quite dominant, could the rapid breathing be a sign of stress?

 

[Mike Wise]

Stress is one possibility. Another is gill flukes like Epistylus. Check the color of the gills.

 

[raymond82]

I don't see anything weird in the color of the gills. What would I see if she had gill flukes?

She's generally off color, she looks completely black and the I don't really see the shiny spot anymore that females of this species have.

 

[wethumbs]

Most likely stress from the 2 males. The males are extremely aggressive toward the female except during breeding cycle. If the tank lacks hiding places, chances are the female is getting 'ping pong' by both males. In my case, since I kept them in species tank, I simply remove the male and let my female recovered. After a few weeks of separation and feeding, she was ready to spawn with the male when he was re-introduced.

 

[raymond82]

Thanks for sharing that, I already had the feeling that the males were more aggressive than I'm used to with Apistogramma's. Even though the fish that I have are quite young, the larger male is quite pushy. I didn't really have a spare tank to put him in so I put a divider in the aquarium, hopefully that will do the job.

 

[raymond82]

After dividing the aquarium and separating the female I didn't see much progress on her. Yesterday I took a close look again and then I saw that she was covered in white spots (either Ich or Velvet, I don't really know the difference between the two). I'm treating her now with medicine, she lost quite some of the white spots but she's still behaving similarly as before. Hopefully she'll recover...

 

[raymond82]

I just found the female dead, unfortunately. Now I'm left with two males, three of the females I had died. The one that died today I think had either Velvet or Ich, which I didn't notice until it was too late. Could the rapid breathing indicate that the gills were affected? It is strange though, since it started a couple of days before I saw any white spots on the body.

 

[gerald]

Yes, ich and velvet can cause significant gill damage several days before spots on the body and fins are visible. Ich spots are larger and white - usually easy to see. Velvet spots are much smaller, yellow to pale brown, more densely crowded, and hard to see. Look at pics of theses diseases in books or online so you can learn to distinguish them. They are two of the easiest diseases to identify visually. Ich is easier to treat, but also kills fish quicker. Velvet is hard to get rid of, and fish can be infected a long time before it kills them.

 

[raymond82]

Thanks for the info Gerald, I'll do some studying into the difference between the two. Based on your description I think it was velvet, the dots were really small which is also why I took a while in seeing them.

Looking back the stress of transort (for the first female) and bullying by the males (the last female) cause the fish some stress, which then made them more vulnerable to disease. In addition, some of the fish in the store already didn't look that great and although I bought the healthiest looking ones they might have already been infected.

I'm slowly growing up in the fish keeping hobby...