Frontosa help

O

oscarlvr

AC Members
Dec 19, 2001
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Edmonton, Alta
2 of my f0 blue zaiere are in trouble, did water test everything is normal, they are staying at the surface of the water with part of their back breaking the water, they eat, but they swim different and cant stay below the water line for long, almost like their bladder is full of air, if youve seen this before please help, these ones cost me big bucks, they both around 5"


bob
 
I think from your previous posts that these fish are in a 150 gallon tank, but I do not know what kind of filtration and water changes you have been using. Nor do I know what you mean by "normal" when you refer to water conditions. What are your pH, GH and KH, and what are you using for water conditioners? Also, what have you been feeding these fish since you got them?

I myself have maintained a breeding colony of Frontosas in a 240g tank for the last 11 years or so, so if you give me some info I might be able to help.
 
thanks harry, yes actualy 130 gal, 72x18x24
2 x fluval 404 and 1 x ac500
i feed them, brine shrimp, shrimp, blood worm and hbk sinking pellets,
water changes every week 30%, every 2nd week sand cleaned
amonia 0
nitrire 1.1
nirtate 15
ph 8.1
temp 78
use aquarium salt as directed and use prime as a water cond

i think ive seen a picture of your fronts,very nice
these sick fronts still eat, but there stomach almost looks like bloat as the scales are frayed a bit.

thanks bob
 
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Well, here are some thoughts off the top of my head:

First, there is nothing wrong with the diet you are feeding them. In fact, your fish eat better than mine.

Second, though, I think your pH is a bit low. I keep mine around 9 with the Seachem Tanganyikan buffer, and add the Seachem Tanganyikan salts for trace elements. Marine salt (if that is indeed what you are using) is not an acceptable substitute for either of these two products.

Third, I'd up the cleanings on your filter material (especially in the canisters) and gravel. There are organic pollutants that build up in there that don't show up on any tests, but are best eliminated by removing detritus. What do you have in your canisters and in the AC 500, by the way?

Fourth, there are cases where Frontosas have eaten too much food from the surface and gulped air which they then had trouble eliminating. The only problem is that you don't appear to be feeding foods which would cause this problem.

Let me know what you think of these ideas. Thanks for the compliments on my Frontosas, although the tank is generally so dark that I can never get a decent photo (it's 32 inches deep and not well lit, so even with a flash almost nothing shows clearly).
 
im sorry, the
nitirte is 0.1

the spike was 1,7 when the amonia got to be 2.0, sorry for the typo. the fronts wernt in the tank for my spike.

the 500 has sponge, carbon and a pice lava rock on top to keep from floatng
the fluval has sponge, carbon, and bio max in both, the next cleaning im taking out the biomax and replacing with media bags of crushed coral to help buffer, ill purchas some of the seacam products you listed, i just bought a milk carton full of aqu salt.

the eat the frozen foods from the surface before the completely thaw, they might get air that way any other ideas on how to get rid of this?

thank also morleyz i also would be concerned if it started to get high again.

Bob
 
Thanks for the reply. Some suggestions:

01. Don't use the aquarium salt. If it isn't a Rift-Lake specific item, it is mostly NaCl (sodium chloride). The Rift Lakes have almost no sodium chloride in them. The Seachem Rift Lake salts provide the correct trace elements, and the buffer is almost the only thing that will raise the pH to where the fish really prefer it to be. The Seachem products are available in 1 kg containers from any of the major on-line retailers, and will cost you less than $25 for a year's supply.

02. In your canister, lose the carbon, not the biomax. Carbon is only effective at adsorption for the first 48 hours or so. Otherwise, you'd be better off using bioballs or other biomedia (RTR particularly likes the Dupla mini-kaskade for this purpose, and I'd have to say I agree with him).

03. If you want to add carbon periodically, put a pack in your Aquaclear 500, and then take it out after a couple of days. You will thus get 100% of the carbon benefit without taking up permanent space in your filter. If you want to put a media bag of crushed coral on top of your sponge in the AC500, you will get the buffering benefits (this would mean that you wouldn't need to use as much of the Seachem buffering product, although it wouldn't really affect how much of the Seachem Rift Lake Salts you should be using). BTW, if your sponge in the AC500 is trying to float, it is clogged and needs to be vigorously rinsed/squeezed out in a bucket or two of tank water to get rid of the detritus (accumulated organics are bad anyway) and restore the flow (for better bio filtration).

04. Regarding the frozen food: most sources recommend that you thaw it before feeding. Just throw it in a container with some tank water, let it unfreeze, and then pour it in. It won't float anymore, and perhaps your fish in distress will recover from (a) not getting internal freezer burn and (2) not gulping air with the floating food.

Hope this helps. Good luck.
 
Harry thank for the help,
my 500 sponge does not float, but use the rock just in case so no overflow happens if it did float, im going to bigal,s store tommorow and wil get those Seacam products you suggest, on my next cleaning of the canisters i will replace the carbon with more bio max, and use the carbon as you stated in my ac 500, ive heard about thawing the frozen foods before but have never done this, i will use a clean small plastic container and do this.

Thanks again

Bob
 
For thawing the frozen food, I would buy a plastic container (either Tupperware or one of those new less expensive alternatives) that will be dedicated to only that purpose. You don't want anything that has ever touched or been touched by soap.

Good luck!
 
This might seem like a stupid question, but I have to ask it anyway. Have you kept other tanganyikans to be able to recognize their aggression response? In my tanks, if I notice someone is suddenly hanging at the tops in the corners, kind of sideways in the water, I immediately either remove them, or redecorate the tank in a big way and add more obstacles to hide amongst. Fish that are low men on the totem pole will try to avoid aggression this way. Do you have tank you could quarantine them in?

Barbie
 
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