Sumpin's Fishy - Page 11

Darkness · 07-05-2007, 13:32

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by Tubby Rower

Quote:

quote:if you feel the pollutants concentrations are too high

what is "too high"?

Ammonia must be below 0.1 ppm
nitrite (NO2) must be below 2 ppm
nitrate (NO3) must be below 10 ppm

So, looking at your parameters before the waterchange: Ammonia is fine. The 50% waterchange put your nitrite at 1 ppm, which is good. Nitrate should now be at 10 ppm. A bit high, but noting to worry about. If you now add 2-3 fish, the bacterial culture will get the kick-start it needs to become a healthy, fully functional biological filter.

For reference:
Toxic/lethal levels for fish:

Ammonia: 0.17 ppm at pH 8.5 (highly pH dependent. Higher pH means lower lethal levels for ammonia).
Nitrite: 10-20 ppm
Nitrate: 50 ppm

Darkness · 07-05-2007, 14:24

OK, some tips on buying cichlids…

General
Know what fish you’re going to buy. Know its’ needs and requirements, because often shopkeepers don’t know and some lie to you. So it is always best to know the details for yourself.
Try not to stray from the objective. Don’t get lured into buying another (prettier/cheaper) fish. These may not be compatible with the set-up you’re aiming for.
You never want to buy sick fish, so it is essential to check their health when you buy them.

What do you need to look at to check for health?
- Look at the fish’s belly. It should be nice and firm. If the bellies hollow then they are most likely either underfed or infected with intestinal worms.
- Check the bottom of the tank for excrement. If it is present then it should be dark and firm. If it is slimy and whitish then the fish are most likely suffering from a disease called “Tropheus Bloat”
- Check the gills of the fish. If they are very red or protruding from the body then the oxygen level in the tank is low. This is not dangerous in terms of disease but it does weaken the fish.
- Check the edges of the fins. If they are frayed in long stretches then the fish may suffer from fin-rot. If it is just small parts of damage to the fins then these marks are most likely bites from other fish.
- Check for activity. Mbuna are active, boisterous fish. If they are just hanging around, they may not be in perfect health.
Now if there is any hollow belly, white excrement or fin-rot on any fish in the tank then do not buy any fish from that particular tank, because then all fish at least carry the disease. They may not be sick (yet), but they are at least infected.

Selecting fish from the tank
- When selecting Mbuna’s, larger fish are better (1 exception, which is the point below this one). Larger means easier to sex, which will give you a better chance of getting the male/female ratio correct.
- Never pick the largest male. Although these are (almost) always the prettiest fish in the tank there is also a reason that they became that large. (Now it could be that the fish is just older than the others but that is very unlikely. You will almost always find groups of fish of similar age in a tank (from the same spawn/breeder, that the shop bought a group of fish from). The exception is of course if you’re buying wildcaught fish. Then ages can differ.) The reason that the largest male is the largest fish is because it is the most aggressive fish in the tank. It eats more food than the others because it bullies the others away from the food. By picking the second or third largest male in the tank, you will at least evade the big testosterone bomb that the largest male is likely to be.
- Select your own fish. Make sure the shopkeeper catches the fish that you indicate. You’re making a selection for a reason, so don’t settle for just 2 or 3 fish from that tank.
- Sexing cichlids: Difficult, I know. Sexing can be done in 2 different ways:
Visual characteristics and Venting.
1 – Visual characteristics: Most Mbuna males will be more active than females. Also males tend to have “heavier” bodies. Males also tend to be larger than females. Whatever the shopkeeper tells you: Females do NOT have only 1 eggspot. (my C. afra female has 3 eggspots and 25 kids swimming around her). Some fish can also be differentiated between the sexes by colour or striping pattern, but rusties and yellows are not among those. Though female rusties tend to lack the purple sides that males have this is by no means an absolute. The same goes for the black breast- and anal-fin edges that male yellows have. Some females also have them.
The only surefire way of sexing cichlids is venting.
2 – Venting: Looking at the genital papilla. It is easier with bigger fish, because then the papilla are also bigger. All Mbuna are mouthbrooders, so in females the genital papilla is much larger than in males. (see also this http://www.fishhead.com/articles/ventsex.htm ) Check in particular the top 4 species. All 4 are mouthbrooders. Tropheus moori and Petrochromis trewavasae are from lake Tanganyika, but the same difference can be noted. Pseudotropheus demasoni and Labeotropheus trewavasae are Lake Malawi Mbuna, so they should be good examples of what to look for.

Bagging fish:
If you have to travel long, then ask the shop to bag the fish separately. If it is but a short trip then they will probably be OK in a single bag. When you get home put the bag in the tank for about 15 minutes. Switch off the lights in the tank. Then take a bucket and fill it for about 40% with water from the tank. Open the fishbag and let the fish go into the bucket (together with the water from the shop. Cover the bucket with a blanket or something for another 15 minutes and let the fish adapt to your water. Then grab a net and catch the fish and put them in the tank. Don’t let the water from the bucket go into the tank, because the fish were compressed with only a small amount of water during your travels, which was stressing for them and the water is now probably saturated with stress hormones that you really don’t need in your tank.
Do not feed the fish on a day when you introduce new fish and turn the lights on the next day.

I hope this is helpful for your purchases and if I only repeated stuff that you already knew then just ignore me…

EDIT: Regarding Labidochromis caeruleus "Yellow". Make sure the fish you buy are really yellow. More yellow is better with this species, as whitish fish (or fish with black vertical bars on the side of the body) are strong signs of inbreeding (lower quality fish that get sick more often and generally don't live very long).

Tubby Rower · 07-05-2007, 14:53

I knew most of that (from reading other stuff), except for the part about selecting specific fish from the tank and the health bit at the top. But the repetition makes it stick in my head

One question though... should I go with the yellows or rustys first? And although you posted the m/f ratio for the acei, rustys and johnannis, there wasn't a recommended ratio for the yellow labs. I think that you indicated a pair, but should I get 2 pair or just 1 m & 1f?

Darkness · 07-05-2007, 14:58

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by Tubby Rower

One question though... should I go with the yellows or rustys first? And although you posted the m/f ratio for the acei, rustys and johnannis, there wasn't a recommended ratio for the yellow labs. I think that you indicated a pair, but should I get 2 pair or just 1 m & 1f?

Yellows are very calm fish. IIRC I indeed said a pair. 1 pair is fine. 2 pairs should also be fine. Yellows are probably the only species of Mbuna that can have more than 1 male in a 55G. If you do get 2 pairs: try to get two males that are about equally sized.
I wouldn't add more than 4 fish total though, considering the slightly high levels of nitrate...

Tubby Rower · 08-05-2007, 12:11

hmm... something is amiss. I purchased 3 rustys yesterday. (the yellow labs didn't look big enough) I got them hope and floated them for 10-15 minutes and then put them in a 5 gal bucket with 1.5-2 gal of aquarium water for 10-15 minutes, then put them in the aquarium with no bucket water. No food. There was a couple of weird things going on (* see below for odd behavior) Other than that, they seemed fine. The lights were left off until this morning. I did test the water and it only had a KH of 4° and a GH of 6°. Water temp was ~ 78-80°F. The lady at the fish store said that they were living in 11° KH and she doesn't test the GH. This morning 2 of the fish were dead and the 3rd one has a good bit of white spots (Ich by the looks of it). I can't do anything until this afternoon, so I need advice on what to do.

The store has a 7 day return policy on fish priced at this price so I'll be taking them back today. They also want a sample of the water which I'll be taking as well. That really sucks that I killed the first fish, but it wasn't really un-expected as I'm still learning. They do have some "mixed African Cichlids" for < $3 each and am tempted to see if I can trade my dead fish for a few of those so I don't keep killing the expensive fish.

**strange behavior noted... One fish for about 2 seconds was jerky, but after that seemed fine. Another fish was kind of hovering vertically face down for a little while before I went to bed.

Darkness · 08-05-2007, 12:35

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by Tubby Rower

hmm... something is amiss. I purchased 3 rustys yesterday. (the yellow labs didn't look big enough) I got them hope and floated them for 10-15 minutes and then put them in a 5 gal bucket with 1.5-2 gal of aquarium water for 10-15 minutes, then put them in the aquarium with no bucket water. No food. There was a couple of weird things going on (* see below for odd behavior) Other than that, they seemed fine. The lights were left off until this morning. I did test the water and it only had a KH of 4° and a GH of 6°. Water temp was ~ 78-80°F. The lady at the fish store said that they were living in 11° KH and she doesn't test the GH. This morning 2 of the fish were dead and the 3rd one has a good bit of white spots (Ich by the looks of it). I can't do anything until this afternoon, so I need advice on what to do.

The store has a 7 day return policy on fish priced at this price so I'll be taking them back today. They also want a sample of the water which I'll be taking as well. That really sucks that I killed the first fish, but it wasn't really un-expected as I'm still learning. They do have some "mixed African Cichlids" for < $3 each and am tempted to see if I can trade my dead fish for a few of those so I don't keep killing the expensive fish.

**strange behavior noted... One fish for about 2 seconds was jerky, but after that seemed fine. Another fish was kind of hovering vertically face down for a little while before I went to bed.

Ow... That sucks.
Difference in KH and GH is not typically an immediate fish-killer.
pH on the other hand can kill withing minutes. What's your pH and the store's?
Also you might want to check your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate concentrations again (hovering quietly face down is a sign of heavy pollutants in the water). So, are you sure that your water tests function properly?
Other quick killers are heavy metals in the water. Can you check for those?

Do you have a picture of the survivor? Or can you describe what he looks like now?
If that one has Ich then the others, if they came from the same tank at the shop, probably were infected too (and now your tank is also infected)...

Tubby Rower · 08-05-2007, 22:36

Ok. I planned on taking an hour or two off to take the fish back for a refund, but it turned out a bit different. I came home and got the two dead fish and a container with aquarium water. They tested it and the nitrites were off the chart as were the nitrates. No wonder they died. Unfoutunately both qualify as toxins and make the gaurantee null and void. The other fish didn't have ick. But it was funny watching them go from tank to tank to look for the other fish that were on the same filtration system to see if any had ick. The people at the fish store seemed to think that all it was was a skin reaction to the crazy amounts of nitrites in the water.

So I talked to everyone of the fish employees in the pet store and one was suggesting that I put a nitrate absorber in the filter. Another said to just wait a couple more weeks, then add fish again. Then the lady at the register suggested I talk to another guy upstairs. So I consulted him and he suggested doing a near 100% water change and get some "mixed cichlids" (cheaper, but not necessarily pure-bred) and add a bacteria additive. So I took the last bit of advice since that sounded the most reasonable with my current knowledge. I ended up with 0.25 ppm nitrites & 0 ppm nitrates after the water change. I attribute the insane nitrite levels to the insane ammonia that was in the system last week. Hopefully I removed the vast amount of nitrites before the nitrates went insane on me.

So now I have 5 small yellow lab looking hybrid cichlids. One of them looks like it has been bred with a zebra and Ana has called Bumblebee. So I fully expect at least 3 of these to die. I'll be checking my water again daily whihc means that I'll likely need to get another test kit for nitrates as that has been being consumed rather rapidly.

The last rusty cichlid of the first batch is now in my septic tank as I flushed him rather than put him in the new water. I attempted to get him in there but he was severely struggling and I didn't want him to suffer any longer.

Tubby Rower · 09-05-2007, 03:18

These new fish are so much more active than the rustys. They seem to race each other up and down the glass. A couple if not all look to be cross-bred, but they were $2 each and will do for my purposes. I did do a 40% water change tonight to keep the nitrites down. ammonia is still 0 and the nitrates are < 5 ppm. The nitrites are going up, so it looks like daily water changes until the nitrite eating bacteria grow up. which according to some of the things that I have seen, should be by this coming weekend.

I now know what Darkness was talking about when he kept saying that some fish wouldn't cooperate with picture taking. These things just didn't stand still. I took ~15-20 pictures and these were the only two that came out anywhere near decent

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Tubby Rower · 09-05-2007, 12:04

even more good news. All 5 are alive and active this morning when I turned on the light. The nitrite was .5 ppm. I'll likely continue to do 40% water changes to make sure that these stay alive. I don't want Ana to get a complex about fish dying when they come to our aquarium

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by Darkness

For reference:
Toxic/lethal levels for fish:

Ammonia: 0.17 ppm at pH 8.5 (highly pH dependent. Higher pH means lower lethal levels for ammonia).
Nitrite: 10-20 ppm
Nitrate: 50 ppm

I am unsure which killed the other fish as both nitrite and nitrate levels were about or above the lethal levels that you listed.

Darkness · 09-05-2007, 13:59

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by Tubby Rower

even more good news. All 5 are alive and active this morning when I turned on the light. The nitrite was .5 ppm. I'll likely continue to do 40% water changes to make sure that these stay alive. I don't want Ana to get a complex about fish dying when they come to our aquarium

Good! Seems like a better second try. Keep up the waterchanges, that will make them happy.

Regarding the fish: They are indeed mutts/inbreeds. The whitish parts and black bars on the flanks are telltale signs of inbreeding. Also a hybridization with Labidochromis sp. Mbamba Bay. Labidochrimis sp. Hongi or Metriaclima zebra "red" seems possible.
The one "swimming upwards" on the right of your pictures is nice and yellow withour black bars so he/she could be a pure "Yellow"

On the positive side: activity, clear eyes and stretched out fins are good signs regarding their health!

What killed your other fish was most likely the nitrate and nitrite. If both were above toxic levels, then either one will have killed the fish.

I suggest you keep it like this for a week to ten days with the frequent waterchanges and tests and then see how the fish are at the end of that period...

07-05-2007, 14:24	#102
Darkness Moderator Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Netherlands. Posts: 4,169	OK, some tips on buying cichlids… General Know what fish you’re going to buy. Know its’ needs and requirements, because often shopkeepers don’t know and some lie to you. So it is always best to know the details for yourself. Try not to stray from the objective. Don’t get lured into buying another (prettier/cheaper) fish. These may not be compatible with the set-up you’re aiming for. You never want to buy sick fish, so it is essential to check their health when you buy them. What do you need to look at to check for health? - Look at the fish’s belly. It should be nice and firm. If the bellies hollow then they are most likely either underfed or infected with intestinal worms. - Check the bottom of the tank for excrement. If it is present then it should be dark and firm. If it is slimy and whitish then the fish are most likely suffering from a disease called “Tropheus Bloat” - Check the gills of the fish. If they are very red or protruding from the body then the oxygen level in the tank is low. This is not dangerous in terms of disease but it does weaken the fish. - Check the edges of the fins. If they are frayed in long stretches then the fish may suffer from fin-rot. If it is just small parts of damage to the fins then these marks are most likely bites from other fish. - Check for activity. Mbuna are active, boisterous fish. If they are just hanging around, they may not be in perfect health. Now if there is any hollow belly, white excrement or fin-rot on any fish in the tank then do not buy any fish from that particular tank, because then all fish at least carry the disease. They may not be sick (yet), but they are at least infected. Selecting fish from the tank - When selecting Mbuna’s, larger fish are better (1 exception, which is the point below this one). Larger means easier to sex, which will give you a better chance of getting the male/female ratio correct. - Never pick the largest male. Although these are (almost) always the prettiest fish in the tank there is also a reason that they became that large. (Now it could be that the fish is just older than the others but that is very unlikely. You will almost always find groups of fish of similar age in a tank (from the same spawn/breeder, that the shop bought a group of fish from). The exception is of course if you’re buying wildcaught fish. Then ages can differ.) The reason that the largest male is the largest fish is because it is the most aggressive fish in the tank. It eats more food than the others because it bullies the others away from the food. By picking the second or third largest male in the tank, you will at least evade the big testosterone bomb that the largest male is likely to be. - Select your own fish. Make sure the shopkeeper catches the fish that you indicate. You’re making a selection for a reason, so don’t settle for just 2 or 3 fish from that tank. - Sexing cichlids: Difficult, I know. Sexing can be done in 2 different ways: Visual characteristics and Venting. 1 – Visual characteristics: Most Mbuna males will be more active than females. Also males tend to have “heavier” bodies. Males also tend to be larger than females. Whatever the shopkeeper tells you: Females do NOT have only 1 eggspot. (my C. afra female has 3 eggspots and 25 kids swimming around her). Some fish can also be differentiated between the sexes by colour or striping pattern, but rusties and yellows are not among those. Though female rusties tend to lack the purple sides that males have this is by no means an absolute. The same goes for the black breast- and anal-fin edges that male yellows have. Some females also have them. The only surefire way of sexing cichlids is venting. 2 – Venting: Looking at the genital papilla. It is easier with bigger fish, because then the papilla are also bigger. All Mbuna are mouthbrooders, so in females the genital papilla is much larger than in males. (see also this http://www.fishhead.com/articles/ventsex.htm ) Check in particular the top 4 species. All 4 are mouthbrooders. Tropheus moori and Petrochromis trewavasae are from lake Tanganyika, but the same difference can be noted. Pseudotropheus demasoni and Labeotropheus trewavasae are Lake Malawi Mbuna, so they should be good examples of what to look for. Bagging fish: If you have to travel long, then ask the shop to bag the fish separately. If it is but a short trip then they will probably be OK in a single bag. When you get home put the bag in the tank for about 15 minutes. Switch off the lights in the tank. Then take a bucket and fill it for about 40% with water from the tank. Open the fishbag and let the fish go into the bucket (together with the water from the shop. Cover the bucket with a blanket or something for another 15 minutes and let the fish adapt to your water. Then grab a net and catch the fish and put them in the tank. Don’t let the water from the bucket go into the tank, because the fish were compressed with only a small amount of water during your travels, which was stressing for them and the water is now probably saturated with stress hormones that you really don’t need in your tank. Do not feed the fish on a day when you introduce new fish and turn the lights on the next day. I hope this is helpful for your purchases and if I only repeated stuff that you already knew then just ignore me… EDIT: Regarding Labidochromis caeruleus "Yellow". Make sure the fish you buy are really yellow. More yellow is better with this species, as whitish fish (or fish with black vertical bars on the side of the body) are strong signs of inbreeding (lower quality fish that get sick more often and generally don't live very long). __________________ "Death is lighter than a feather, but duty is heavier than a mountain..." - The Eye of the World

07-05-2007, 14:53	#103
Tubby Rower Moderator Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Middle of VA. Posts: 3,896	I knew most of that (from reading other stuff), except for the part about selecting specific fish from the tank and the health bit at the top. But the repetition makes it stick in my head One question though... should I go with the yellows or rustys first? And although you posted the m/f ratio for the acei, rustys and johnannis, there wasn't a recommended ratio for the yellow labs. I think that you indicated a pair, but should I get 2 pair or just 1 m & 1f? __________________ 3/2006 : Now, surely that must be because some fists might have caused internal damage to certain delicate parts?

08-05-2007, 12:11	#105
Tubby Rower Moderator Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Middle of VA. Posts: 3,896	hmm... something is amiss. I purchased 3 rustys yesterday. (the yellow labs didn't look big enough) I got them hope and floated them for 10-15 minutes and then put them in a 5 gal bucket with 1.5-2 gal of aquarium water for 10-15 minutes, then put them in the aquarium with no bucket water. No food. There was a couple of weird things going on (* see below for odd behavior) Other than that, they seemed fine. The lights were left off until this morning. I did test the water and it only had a KH of 4° and a GH of 6°. Water temp was ~ 78-80°F. The lady at the fish store said that they were living in 11° KH and she doesn't test the GH. This morning 2 of the fish were dead and the 3rd one has a good bit of white spots (Ich by the looks of it). I can't do anything until this afternoon, so I need advice on what to do. The store has a 7 day return policy on fish priced at this price so I'll be taking them back today. They also want a sample of the water which I'll be taking as well. That really sucks that I killed the first fish, but it wasn't really un-expected as I'm still learning. They do have some "mixed African Cichlids" for < $3 each and am tempted to see if I can trade my dead fish for a few of those so I don't keep killing the expensive fish. **strange behavior noted... One fish for about 2 seconds was jerky, but after that seemed fine. Another fish was kind of hovering vertically face down for a little while before I went to bed. __________________ 3/2006 : Now, surely that must be because some fists might have caused internal damage to certain delicate parts?

08-05-2007, 22:36	#107
Tubby Rower Moderator Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Middle of VA. Posts: 3,896	Ok. I planned on taking an hour or two off to take the fish back for a refund, but it turned out a bit different. I came home and got the two dead fish and a container with aquarium water. They tested it and the nitrites were off the chart as were the nitrates. No wonder they died. Unfoutunately both qualify as toxins and make the gaurantee null and void. The other fish didn't have ick. But it was funny watching them go from tank to tank to look for the other fish that were on the same filtration system to see if any had ick. The people at the fish store seemed to think that all it was was a skin reaction to the crazy amounts of nitrites in the water. So I talked to everyone of the fish employees in the pet store and one was suggesting that I put a nitrate absorber in the filter. Another said to just wait a couple more weeks, then add fish again. Then the lady at the register suggested I talk to another guy upstairs. So I consulted him and he suggested doing a near 100% water change and get some "mixed cichlids" (cheaper, but not necessarily pure-bred) and add a bacteria additive. So I took the last bit of advice since that sounded the most reasonable with my current knowledge. I ended up with 0.25 ppm nitrites & 0 ppm nitrates after the water change. I attribute the insane nitrite levels to the insane ammonia that was in the system last week. Hopefully I removed the vast amount of nitrites before the nitrates went insane on me. So now I have 5 small yellow lab looking hybrid cichlids. One of them looks like it has been bred with a zebra and Ana has called Bumblebee. So I fully expect at least 3 of these to die. I'll be checking my water again daily whihc means that I'll likely need to get another test kit for nitrates as that has been being consumed rather rapidly. The last rusty cichlid of the first batch is now in my septic tank as I flushed him rather than put him in the new water. I attempted to get him in there but he was severely struggling and I didn't want him to suffer any longer. __________________ 3/2006 : Now, surely that must be because some fists might have caused internal damage to certain delicate parts?

09-05-2007, 03:18	#108
Tubby Rower Moderator Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Middle of VA. Posts: 3,896	These new fish are so much more active than the rustys. They seem to race each other up and down the glass. A couple if not all look to be cross-bred, but they were $2 each and will do for my purposes. I did do a 40% water change tonight to keep the nitrites down. ammonia is still 0 and the nitrates are < 5 ppm. The nitrites are going up, so it looks like daily water changes until the nitrite eating bacteria grow up. which according to some of the things that I have seen, should be by this coming weekend. I now know what Darkness was talking about when he kept saying that some fish wouldn't cooperate with picture taking. These things just didn't stand still. I took ~15-20 pictures and these were the only two that came out anywhere near decent 43.57 KB 45.35KB __________________ 3/2006 : Now, surely that must be because some fists might have caused internal damage to certain delicate parts?