checkerboards whats wrong!!??

[crazycanuck]

i purchased 2 checkerboards from my LFS about a month ago and last week i lost 6 rummy nose and both checkerboards for no apparent reason.. water paremeters where excellent... i replaced them 4 days ago and just found one dead.. they never looked like they quite settled in.. they where swimming slow and always near bottom,gills pumping... the remainging one is fine now.. ( hopefully ) are checkerboards particularily sensitive fish?? i dont know whats happening.. oh and will they grow much larger than a rummy nose tetra??

thanks :)

[jpappy789]

what were the exact water params...0,0, <40?

never had them but I believe they are more sensitive to poor water conditions than others, so you could say they are more sensitive. rummies are as well. it is possible that they just never "settled in" as you said and were too stressed from the move. quite possible that the source is also the problem...

[crazycanuck]

water params are ammonia= o nitrite=0 nitrate=15 and PH a steady 6.8

but are checkers more sensetive than german rams?? because i know they are suposed to be very sensetive and i bought one for the first time that day as well and hes all good...

[jpappy789]

I assume they are in the same tank ;)

Were there any physical abnormalities?

I have never had trouble with rams. People believe that they are far more sensitive than they really are, and the source has a big part in this. It is true, that they do not do well in "new" tanks though.

At this point I would have to say that your LFS is not getting a good stock of checkerboards. Seems to be getting a bigger and bigger problem with a lot of species lately...

[crazycanuck]

no, no abnormalities... but ya it may be bad stock .thanks for the help :)

is 15 high for an established tanks nitrates?? i know above 40 is bad but...

[ScottoMacD]

Just out of curiosity did you test the water from the fish store?

Is it a well known fish store in your area.

I ask because I have seen some nice stores that have awful water and holes in the wall where the fish are so well taken care of that it is amazing.

I have bought fish from a certain local supplier here in Montreal and the fish kept on dying. I finally tested their water one day when I got home with the free replacements (After allot of complaining) the water was so nasty that when I did the nitrate test it started to turn red right away before I even added the drops from the second bottle of the two bottle test. UGH!!! It normally takes upwards of five minutes to get a good nitrate reading with this test. Now that is bad.

From that point on we stopped buying fish for the store and for myself from that particular nightmare.

You very well might just be buying fish on their last legs (or fins in this case) and the the stress of the travel home and the new surrounding is the final kicker.

As for the checkerboards. While they are not by any means the toughest cichlid around. They are still quite hardy for a little cichlid. I kept and bred them in a 20 long for a few years wasn't the best enviroment but they kept breeding and the fry made me a little money. I split them up after about 5 years. The male lived another 3 and the female another 2.

Now Rummy Noses. That is another story. They are notoriously picky and weak fish. They have to be kept in high quality water. I would put them in the same boat as wild caught cardinals. In the 3 years that I worked in the aquaria business. Rummy nose had the highest mortality rate of all the fish that we imported and kept in the store.
One particular species of the three types of rummy nose did much better than the other two. For the life of me though I cannot remember which one.

Regards.

[Zack Wilson]

First, it would also help to know which checkerboard we are talking about. Crenicara punctulatum? Dicrossus filamentosus?

C. punctulatum is a fairly hardy fish and tends to be able to handle itself well, for the most part. The fish of the genus Dicrossus are not extremely tolerant of quickly changing water params. They are particularly prone to mortality issues shortly after import, and it's not uncommon to see a lot of deaths when they come in. Scott may very well be correct in that you may be buying fish that are weak and incapable of handling the transition to your tank. They may also be intimidated by other fishes in the tank, adding further stress. Either species is likely to be wild-caught, as neither is commonly bred commercially, so there is a possibility that they carry latent disease or have suffered poor conditions on their way to you. If they are breathing heavily this could suggest gill damage or parasites. Parasites would also provide some explanation about the other deaths, assuming the rummy-nose were not new additions as well.

Basically, looking at your water params, I wouldn't assume they are the cause, but there can be so many more factors involved in making the environment suitable. Also, since the common name involved is not very specific, it's harder to give particulars about what you should be doing for the fishes.

[band_width_band]

I don't know about the checkerboards, but rummy nose tetras are notorious for "just dieing" as part of the moving process.

However, once they do settle in, they are very, very hardy...