I had an outburst of disease in my new tank months ago. I referred to it as the plague. I lost a green terror and a spotted pike cichilid within a week. My spotted sailfin pleco appeared to have ich, and my 2 Jewel Cichilids also became ill.
I treated with elevated temps to around 84-86, salt, pimafix, melafix, and later jungle labs anti fungal tabs. I believe the fungal tablets are what healed up the fin rot, and the excess body slime I was seeing.
Unfortunately it's been months since the outburst and my 2 jewel cichilids don't appear happy. They are almost always hiding in seperate spots in the tank. One does come out from time to time and likes to lay on the bottom. If it sees something like a big german shephard or person, the fish tends to go absolutely berserk and zip around the tank looking for a way out.
This is not how the fish behaved before they became ill, and from what I've read, is not normal for jewel cichilid behavior. Everytime someone mentions jewel cichlid, someone gets up on their soap box and says there are 6 species. I'm still trying to figure this out. Mine look very similar to this picture.
I took the picture from this site.
Things seemed to take a turn for the even worse when I started feeding them jungle labs antibacterial food. Instead of just sitting around, the fish became determined to hide and super easy to spook as described above. One hides in a spanish gallion, and the other in a plastic rock formation cave thing. Interestingly enough, I've found the one in the rock formation hiding nose up. I figured they had something internal because they weren't very active. After 2 weeks of that, and a lot of slimy, clear, yucky, fecal matter, I put the tank back on hikari mini pellets.
Breathing doesn't seem heavy. Color is somewhat pale. The one that comes out usually sits on the bottom with it's tail slightly cocked to the side. I think the food is being eaten, because I do see waste on the bottom of the tank, and it's disappearing.
My tank has been cycled, though I did detect a minor disturbance from the jungle labs tabs, that gave me a detectable (.25-.50ppm) amount of ammonia at one point. My water vitals are 0 ppm amm, 0 ppm nitrite, 10-20ppm nitrate, 78F.
I'm open to any suggestions. It really sucks having a 40 gallon with a pleco, and 2 cichlids that rarely show themselves.
I treated with elevated temps to around 84-86, salt, pimafix, melafix, and later jungle labs anti fungal tabs. I believe the fungal tablets are what healed up the fin rot, and the excess body slime I was seeing.
Unfortunately it's been months since the outburst and my 2 jewel cichilids don't appear happy. They are almost always hiding in seperate spots in the tank. One does come out from time to time and likes to lay on the bottom. If it sees something like a big german shephard or person, the fish tends to go absolutely berserk and zip around the tank looking for a way out.
This is not how the fish behaved before they became ill, and from what I've read, is not normal for jewel cichilid behavior. Everytime someone mentions jewel cichlid, someone gets up on their soap box and says there are 6 species. I'm still trying to figure this out. Mine look very similar to this picture.
I took the picture from this site.
Things seemed to take a turn for the even worse when I started feeding them jungle labs antibacterial food. Instead of just sitting around, the fish became determined to hide and super easy to spook as described above. One hides in a spanish gallion, and the other in a plastic rock formation cave thing. Interestingly enough, I've found the one in the rock formation hiding nose up. I figured they had something internal because they weren't very active. After 2 weeks of that, and a lot of slimy, clear, yucky, fecal matter, I put the tank back on hikari mini pellets.
Breathing doesn't seem heavy. Color is somewhat pale. The one that comes out usually sits on the bottom with it's tail slightly cocked to the side. I think the food is being eaten, because I do see waste on the bottom of the tank, and it's disappearing.
My tank has been cycled, though I did detect a minor disturbance from the jungle labs tabs, that gave me a detectable (.25-.50ppm) amount of ammonia at one point. My water vitals are 0 ppm amm, 0 ppm nitrite, 10-20ppm nitrate, 78F.
I'm open to any suggestions. It really sucks having a 40 gallon with a pleco, and 2 cichlids that rarely show themselves.
