need some advice re: cichlid

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biogal76

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Jun 28, 2006
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A coworker of mine inheritied a cichlid -lovingly called Rocky for his rock moving behavior- from another coworker when she left the job (the fish and tank is at the office). He's orange, we think he might be a midas, but no one really knows for sure. He's been at the office for 7 yrs, but we don't know total age. Anyway, what size tank should he be in? He's currently housed in a 55gal, but it seems small to me for him. (he's alone - b/c he is very aggressive - he used to have a tank mate when they were smaller, but that one had to be removed, and someone else currently has that fish in the office)
Anyway, Rocky is having problems with Ich, we tried treating it with the meds, but it keeps coming back. We are going to try raising the heat on him next week to see if we can get rid of it. I read about the salt-treatment on the ich article...do people do this with cichlids too? I've never had ich not go away with meds, so I'm nervous about the salt, if anything happened to Rocky, we'd all be very upset. I know next to nothing about cichlids, though I've had success with several tropical tanks over the years. Anyway, my coworker is also concerned about him...we don't want to lose him! Is salt a good option? Will he be ok?
Does us not being there on the weekends have anything to do with not being able to effectivly treat the ich with meds, b/c sometimes we have to go longer than the recommended days due to weekends.
Anyway, thanks for the help, we love this fish, and he has wonderful personality! :-)
 
sounds like a midas or red devil, the two are frequently sold as the same so it really doesnt matter which he truly is unless you are breeding. how long is the fish? a 55 should be okay, but a 75 would be better, and biggger is always better. how often does his water get changed? any tank should get at least 50% at least weekly. i would just use quick cure for ick and raise the temp. i usually keep the temp at about 82 for my big cichlid. there is something stressing the fish or else he wouldnt be susceptible to ick. so you also have to figure out what is stressing him in the first place and fix that too or else it will keep stressing him and he will keep getting ick. check the nitrates, pH, temp, etc to see if any of those arent right.
 
I've read about Rocky in your posts. He sounds like a nice guy and I would really hate to see anything happen to him, as well. Any fish that lets you pet him is pretty cool in my book, I have 2 that do that too.

Yes, the salt method is the best way to go. FW fish can stand salt TEMPORARILY up to about 6 ppt, specific gravity of 1.004, because it's about the salinity of their tissues. Any higher than that, and you risk messing up their osmoregulatory (water-salt balance) function. But for the ich treatment, you will remain far below that limit. I'm guessing you've read the article we have here on how to do that treatment.

He should be fine for the weekend, especially without chemical medications. In my opinion, those do a lot worse for the fish because they compromise water quality. In other words, you would stand a lot higher chance of losing him due to ammonia or nitrite poisoning over the weekend because the chemicals might kill your nitrifying bacteria population.

While salt may do that to some degree as well, I believe the risk is lower. I may be wrong about that, so I'd like to see if anyone has any experience with that one. I myself have only treated for ich twice, when I was new to the hobby (both times hadn't cycled correctly). I used Rid-Ich (malachite green solution) which killed more than a few fish. I believe it said on the bottle NOT to do any water changes during treatment, because it would remove medications, or at least that's what the sales guy at the store told me. Needless to say, it was bad advice.

Whenever treating for any condition, it's always best to monitor ammonia and nitrite levels and be prepared to do water changes at any moment. The tank Rocky is in is hopefully mature and cycled, though. How long has it been set up, or has he been in "solitary"? Naughty fish.
 
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RG2727 noted, it would be great to hear about your maintenance routine in detail and your water parameters. Any chance of OTS?

Without the introduction of new fish/plants to this long established tank, it would be nice to locate the stress. I think the salt would be less of an issue than the meds available.

Anybody familiar with lifespan on a Midas/Red devil?
 
Are you sure it's Ich????

We just had a go round with ich ourselves and lost all but one fish. We were on vacation when it happened and were not here to treat fast enough. From everything I have read ich has to be introduced into the tank from somewhere else. In our case it was a replacement Pleco, brought home two weeks before our trip from a LFS.

If Rocky has been alone for 7 years I am not sure that Ich can be the problem. I don't have a link to all the numerous cites I read about the ich life cycle, but they all said it does not have a dormant phase, and must be brought in from the outside. Thus all the recomendations for qurantine tanks.

Just a thought before you start a long and drawn out process of adding salt and the like.
 
:cool: So sorry "ROCKY" :sick: . Hard to tell w/out pictures but I agree w/ plah831. I generally try to steer clear of chem. treatments unless there's no other alternative. Start w/ a W/C of about 40/50%. Try the salt while SLOWLY raising the temp. to 82 degrees & maintain for a few days. Monitor for improvement or possible signs of stress. Since he/she is the sole occupant of the tank, we can rule out introduction of the 'ich' from an outside source & focus on poor water quality as the probable culprit.(just a guess, not a judgement) If this is indeed a 7yr. old Midas or Red Devil, you've got a fairly large, aggressive, territorial, South American eating machine.(avg. size 25/30cm). That being said, a little more room (75gl) and increased filtration (don't know what u have) along w/ a dedicated W/C schedule could only be a good thing. Hopefully "ROCKY" will be :dance2: OK. As always, aside from the facts, this is JMHO. Good Luck
 
:cool: BTW I almost forgot, increase the oxygenation of the water (higher water temps. = less oxygen in the water. You don't want to deprive "ROCKY" of needed oxygen in a weakened state. Lowering the water level a bit if you have an HOB or adding an air stone, spraybar above the surface or P/H directed toward the surface would be helpful. Good Luck
 
Yeah, he lets us pet him, begs for food and makes a lot of splashing and noise when new people come in the office. He's too cute. I guess I could take my camera to work and try to snap a picture of him, but he looks just like the pics of midas/red devils I've seen. He's got a big hump on his head too, if that helps.

well, I thought it was ich, b/c it looks like it, but I suppose it could be something else. It seems to go away for about a week or so after the med treatment, then comes back. I was wondering about stress myself, but don't know what could be stressing him out. He doesn't really have a lot of cover, he's so big that his current owner took out some of his big rocks so he had more room to swim. He's been alone in the tank for about 2 yrs I'm sure...I'll ask. I hear of them giving him bait fish in the past, but they haven't done that since I've been there. We've been talking about going in together and getting him a bigger tank...maybe I should push for that more.

Anyway, he has a HOB the Aquaclear, with the sponge and ammonia filter (? - coworker calls it this, I've not been involved with his filtering) until I started working in this section in January, he got his water changed about once a month (25%), but I've taken him to 25% a week, more frequently when he is getting treated with ich meds. He also has UGF. His tank is kept at 75-76 degrees, so he should be up around 80 normally? So then I need to very very gradually raise his temp to that and then work on raising it to kill the fungus/parasite whatever?

I've not taken water chem samples, but I can take my kit to work tomorrow and check and post the numbers. He seems fine, other than the stuff on his fins -previously called ich but could be something else- when I first saw it, there was a lot on his right pectoral fin, and it was almost like he was favoring that fin, and he was scratching his belly on the rocks. We treated him with rid-ich like the bottle said, I believe it was treat one day, water change the next skip a day repeat for 3 times. It went away and came back in a week or so, and we did another round. It was gone for awhile...maybe a week or two..and I noticed it on his fins again, just a little bit.
 
just to clarify: you said he is 7 years old, at least, but that he recently got moved to that tank because of aggression ,right? is it a newer tank, then?
 
plah831 said:
just to clarify: you said he is 7 years old, at least, but that he recently got moved to that tank because of aggression ,right? is it a newer tank, then?
Click to expand...

No, he's always been in this tank...his tankmate was moved out about 2 yrs ago.
 
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