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View Full Version : Emergency; Gold Ram dying!?!?



Judon
06-08-2010, 1:00 AM
1. What is the size of your tank? 28 gal; I am a bit concerned about the location, it is in the living room at the entrance so every time a person walks into the living room they walk like three foot from the tank.

2. What are your water parameters? State the brand of test kit used. Jungle Laboratory, 5 Tests, Quick Dip,
a. June 5th (1 hr after water change)-Nitrate>= 20; Nitrite=0; GH=75; KH=80; ph<=6.8
b. June 7th- Nitrate<=20; Nitrite=0; GH between 75-150 (closer to 75); KH 80-120 (closer to 80); ph 7.2

3. Is your aquarium set up freshwater or brackish water? Freshwater

4. How long the aquarium has been set up? Just over two months

5. What fish do you have? How many are in your tank? How big are they? How long have you had them?
6 Harlequin Rasboras(1 month), 4 White Fin (Ornate) Tetras(1 month), 6 Botia sidthimunki (~1 month), 2 Siamese Algae Eaters(3 weeks), 1 Rubberlipped Pleco (~1 month), 2 Narita Snails(~1 month), 4 Rams (2.5 weeks & 1 week).

6. Were the fish placed under quarantine period (minus the first batch from the point wherein the tank is ready to accommodate the inhabitants)? No quarantine period. He’s been in the tank for >=2.5 weeks,

7. What temperature is the tank water currently? 75-77 F

8. Are there live plants in the aquarium? Lots and lots of plants, Anubis, amazon swords, crypto, fire moss, small lilly

9. What filter are you using? State brand, maintenance routine and power capacity. Whisper 40 power filter, change the filter and carbon every two weeks…just changed it two days ago when I changed the water.

10. Any other equipment used (aside from heater and filter which are two very important components of the tank)? 24” HO T5 Light with 2 bulbs on a 12 hour schedule, SUPPLEMENTS: FlorinMulti (multi-nutrient with iron& iodine/ 2 drops daily), FlorinAxis (carbon source/ 2 drops daily)

11. Does your aquarium receive natural sunlight at any given part of the day? What is your lighting schedule (assuming you do not rely on sunlight for our viewing pleasure)? Very little natural lighting, 12 hour timer for HO T5 dual lamp.

12. When did you perform your last water change and how much water was changed? How often do you change your water? Do you vacuum the substrate? About 1 weekly or bi weekly at most, Two days ago, 25% water changed, used DI water, no vacuum of substrate(it’s a planted tank)

13. What foods do you provide your fish? What is the feeding schedule? Small pinches throughout the day, usually just enough that they keep looking when it’s gone. Types of food: Nutrafin Max flake food (daily), Hikari Algae Wafers ?(every other day or so), Sally’s SF Bay Brand Bloodworms (every couple days), H2O Life Daphne (every couple days)

14. What unusual signs have you observed in your fish? Gold Ram. He has been an active fish and pretty dominant so far, after I got him home his colors really deepened. Very pretty fish, really turned out to be more than I expected.I love this little fish, really cool color and behavior wise. Last night I noticed his colors were pale relatively; his behavior seemed sluggish and lethargic. Tonight he is worse than he was, just lying on the bottom of the tank and not even responding when I put food in the tank. I initially bought two Rams at the same time, this one and another Gold Ram that we think was a female. She died just over a week after they came home, after acting similar to what he is right now. I replaced her with another smaller Gold Ram male, and two normally colored Ram females (one of which looks to be full of eggs!! How cool!!). The female that died acted like that for about three or four days, so I figured that she was sick when I brought her home. She was initially slow moving compared to the others in the tank at the store. The worker (who has been a great resource so far, but he moved the day after I bought the Rams) and I both thought that she was probably getting ready to lay eggs. But after she died about a week later, I figure she was sick. Now the Male is acting the same way, I hope to not lose him. No other fish are acting peculiar, including the other Rams that I replaced the female with. Everyone comes out to eat when I put food in and I’ve not noticed any fish not getting their share of food. He was eating until today. Today I even put frozen Daphne in the tank and the other three Rams just floated around it for a long while like it was an all you can eat buffet, he never even approached it.

15. Have you treated your fish ahead of diagnosis? If so, what treatments did you use? State your reasons for planning ahead of proper diagnosis. No nothing has been done yet.

16. Insert photos of fish in question and full tank shot if necessary.
The first pic is the tank overall, all of the plants are live.
The second pic is the sick fish he has been in that area for three or four hours now.
The third is the healthy male Gold Ram and the female (I think) Ram, the colors as you can see are much darker and more pronounced than the fish in question.

irish paddy
06-08-2010, 9:29 AM
Not 100% sure but there was a jump in ur ph from 6.8 to 7.2 ,maybe because these fish were new it was 2 much of a shock for them.U should test the water u use for the water ch aswelll 2 make sure there's not much of a difference between that and ur tank water.Dont know about any1 else but i only feed my fish once a day and only what they can eat in a couple of minutes stops the build up of toxins.another tip wud be take the carbon sponge out altogether there only used to take out medication that has been used 2 treat disease

bradlgt21
06-08-2010, 9:37 AM
PH swings that small can be normal. Your PH will go up in a tank a few days after a water change because all the CO2 will off gas. Don't worry about that, they are close anyway. The fact that they all have been fat then dying makes me think internal parasites or bloating. Did you check the diagnosis thread? Check that and see if either of those match. Treat with how they say. You should really look into doing a QT tank, Hope you can catch and treat this before any more loses.

Judon
06-09-2010, 12:25 AM
He died this morning.. :(
I am going to look over the site and see if I can find anything on what kind of parasite that would do this. Thanks for the advice though. Tonight I noticed that one of the other Ram's seems to have ick now. I noticed a few small spots on her fins. :( So, I guess that will have to be looked into immediately and then troubleshoot the other issues after that. YeaAA the joys of aquarium keeping!!

H2Ogal
06-09-2010, 9:49 AM
Jungle Laboratory, 5 Tests, Quick Dip,
a. June 5th (1 hr after water change)-Nitrate>= 20; Nitrite=0; GH=75; KH=80; ph<=6.8
b. June 7th- Nitrate<=20; Nitrite=0; GH between 75-150 (closer to 75); KH 80-120 (closer to 80); ph 7.2

Dip strips are notoriously unreliable. Also, it doesn't appear that you're testing for ammonia, which is probably the first thing you should be testing for whenever there's a problem. I strongly suggest that you toss the strips and get API's Freshwater Master Test Kit, which tests for PH, High PH, Ammonia, Nitrites and Nitrates.

Whisper 40 power filter, change the filter and carbon every two weeks…just changed it two days ago when I changed the water.

Do you mean you're putting in a new filter at every water change? Doing so can cause the tank to repeatedly go through cycles or mini-cycles, which could be an underlying cause of all the problems you're having. (The rams may be more sensitive than other fish in your tank, but all of them are at risk from ammonia spikes, etc.) The only thing you need to do with the filter media during a water change is rinse it in a bucket of old tank water, or in conditioned, dechlorinated water (never straight tap water). As long as you can rinse most of the gunk out, you can reuse the media with no problem. It's full of beneficial bacteria that you don't want to lose.

As irish paddy mentioned, there's no need to use activated carbon except to remove medications, etc. from the water. Since you do not want to keep throwing away the filter material, take the carbon out and just use the fiber bag/pad. (Unlike the biofilter material, carbon should not be left long-term in a tank. Its ability to take up toxins is soon exhausted, and it can dump toxins back into the tank. That's my understanding of things, anyway. Others here may be able to explain that better.)

Sorry to hear about your troubles, and I hope this helps.

Star_Rider
06-09-2010, 10:51 AM
I'll add the temp is pretty cool for Ramirezi..the blue ram, (aka GBR) gold ram.

this is a species that actually prefers warmer water..more in the neighborhood of 82-84.

while this may not be what killed the ram it could be a contributing factor.
btw your water may be more suitable for Bolivian rams given the stock

Judon
06-09-2010, 10:53 AM
Thanks,
I will look into getting the API kit instead. I had wondered about changing the carbon out every time. I had bought the carbon with the ammonia absorbing material in it, so I figured it was helping in that way. With it being a planted tank and that I don't vacuum the substrate when I do a water change/ filter change, shouldn't there be a pretty good colony of bacteria and algae growing in the substrate? I will remove the carbon today, should I add some ceramic rings, "bio media balls", or other form of biological media? OR would it be better to increase the mechanical filtration by adding another foam filter or a 50/100 micron filter? My LFS has DI water so it won't be a problem to start rinsing the filter correctly.

Star_Rider
06-09-2010, 11:30 AM
how heavily planted is the tank?
in heavily planted tank the ammonia may not be an issue

Judon
06-09-2010, 11:52 AM
I am going to reevaluate the way I've stocked my tank. Maybe come up with a Excel spreadsheet that tracks temps and ph's that the different fish will need so I can better pick. I love the look of the Bolivian Ram, do they come in Gold or Blue like the German Ram? As I'm looking at them, they(Rams) remind me of what we called a "Sun Perch" back in Louisiana where I am from. I had them in aquariums with perch in them when I was a kid, and they are pretty darn mean/hungry fish. Not what I'd call a community fish.
The tank is totally live plants. There are 16 different plants, including the big bunch of Flame Moss that I have growing on the rock over on the left.
I've raised the temp up to 82F last night because I found little white spots on on of the other Rams. I'm gonna go get Ick treatment today and hopefully I can prevent that from going any farther.
Which of the fish should I be most worried about the higher temp affecting? Maybe the Botia sidthimunki? I'm gonna get started on the Excel spreadsheet today, so I will have a better way to track their needs.

Thanks for the advice.

Star_Rider
06-09-2010, 2:05 PM
Bolivians really don't have any morphed colors..
they are a bit drab when compared to Ramirezi
but they make up for this with size and attitude
they are a fun fish to keep
most fish can tolerate a slight bump in temp but remember that warmer water tends to hold less O2 so add airstones