|
HELP!
Nov 6, 2008 10:56:59 GMT -5
Post by murdock6701 on Nov 6, 2008 10:56:59 GMT -5
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm beginning to think Jonv is right - am down to the one dominant ram! the 2 that I got last Wednesday are gone - found one body - NO SIGN anywhere of the other! as in the case of the rasbora, I think he ate it! so now what do I do? beautiful or not, I am not going to replace them w/ more blues...do I find a fish thats a little more aggressive as a tankmate? or do I just get rid of this little bastard? I am so bummed - all week they swam together and shared the same hang outs, mild chasing, but no aggression - I even altered the decor a bit every other day - the only other big fish I have in there is a 4 year old blind in one eye silver dollar! any suggestions or comments?
|
|
|
HELP!
Nov 6, 2008 11:16:44 GMT -5
Post by Carl on Nov 6, 2008 11:16:44 GMT -5
First, I am sorry to read this as I knwo how happy/proud you were to receive these new fish, so I really feel "deflated" reading this.
This likely is a dominant Ram, however I have not had this happen in most of my Ram tank, but I should add that in many cases these tanks were quite large (one was over 200 gallons). The Ram I currenty have (albeit not a German Blue) is in a small tank (smaller than yours) and is relatively dominant in his behavior, however he does well with all his non Ram tank mates, even the Gourami. He probably "spars" most with the Angel.
So my suggestion is to stay with him (watch for any signs of illness to rule this out as the reason for the others deaths), stay with your Silver Dollar, add more Tetras, Rasboras, even Celebes Rainbows or similar. I even have Swords, Mollies, and Platties mixe with mine (not typical fish to have ina SA Ram tank)
Hope this helps, but again I am REALLY sorry to read this, reading this just makes a Sh*!# week even worse.
Carl
|
|
|
HELP!
Nov 6, 2008 11:23:21 GMT -5
Post by Carl on Nov 6, 2008 11:23:21 GMT -5
Another question:
Have you noticed any signs of disease such as fading colors, decreased appetite, change in behavior in any/all your rams, incluing the survivor?
Carl
|
|
|
HELP!
Nov 6, 2008 11:23:26 GMT -5
Post by murdock6701 on Nov 6, 2008 11:23:26 GMT -5
sorry for your personal distress Carl......the 2 I believe he killed were only 3/8" or so smaller than he was - they were fine for a week - I know it is not lack of food, but then again, where did the 2nd fish go? like I said, I found one intact, no sign of the other - seems like the dominant one always swims in full display - don't know what to do! starting off liking the rams but am ready to off this little bugger! he's killed $30 worth of beautiful fish! may not seem a lot to some, but it is to me!
|
|
|
HELP!
Nov 6, 2008 12:12:56 GMT -5
Post by Carl on Nov 6, 2008 12:12:56 GMT -5
Please dont worry about me, I am frustrated/distressed for you. I truly understand how much $30 is to you and many here!
I wish I could give you a matter of fact answer, but I cannot. I believe aggression is the likely cause as you have indicated, however please watch the one survivor for ANY indication of other problems so that we can prevent his loss just in case their is a pathogenic or similar problem.
Also please be patient with this guy, hopefully you can get a happy community going with him (even though I agree with wanting to "off him")
Carl
|
|
|
HELP!
Nov 6, 2008 12:49:28 GMT -5
Post by jonv on Nov 6, 2008 12:49:28 GMT -5
John,
What is striking me as really odd here is this must be occuring at night? The times that you are there, you do not witness anything unusual in the group where this dominant guy is harassing anyone? This sounds a lot like a case where the Ram almost knows if someone is watching him and waiting for you to turn your back LOL, sorry but I mean that as funny like that's something you'd think to see in your kids, not in fish.
If you have some time that you can spend, not sure where you have your PC located at, but mine is in the central part of the room and I can see both tanks, I try to look over them and see what they are doing from time to time so I have an advantage of having the tanks in my view quite a few hours of the day, and I've seen some getting chased around excessively and had to move some around. In fact, I did some just yesterday. Those Obliquidens I got a month ago, were 2 males 4 females and there was one male showing more color then the other. In this case, we're talking about 2.5 to 3 inch fish here in 100 gallons of space. I took 1 male and 2 females, and put them over in the 180.
On that note, THANK YOU to 8 for that point about a male needing the females around to bring out the colors. Now both males show VERY nice colorings and there's much less chasing and splashing going on. What we want to keep in mind here with your case John, is that your set up is a 20 which is compressed in space in terms of the tanks I have. This has to be the factor that's going on. I'm still not 100% sure it's that Ram doing it, but I'm very much leaning towards it.
The next thing we have to rule out is your supplier is just getting bad batches of fish is all. There's going to be some stress that happens when you move in new fish, there isn't much getting around that. We have to consider that fish as new arrivals in a store have been netted out of a tank, shipped, taken out, put in a holding tank there, and then bagged up again and moved to yet another tank. Even if this is ship direct to you, that's still adding in some levels of stress. So this leads me to think there's a possiblity, the fish being sent are not at 100% of health and the moving involved combined with the acclimation to a new tank with an assertive male is too much for these fish to cope with. That's something we have to consider.
The solution or way to figure this, from my point of view however, has risk in itself. My idea would be to aim to get some more Rams that are bigger then this one. The risk here is they might be even more aggresive then he is and this might end up killing him. Plus it accounts for you spending yet more money. One thing I can say though, he's certainly not going to get lonely being the only Ram in there either. Two things to consider here I see. One is like you said, getting rid of the bastard but get something back for him. Trading him back for as much as you can get, and start with a whole new group all togeather, or you just leave him be until finances improve, and then try again with bigger Rams. The only risk factors as I see it are like I said, the newer ones might do him in or he might get even more set into that tank thinking it's ALL his and stress out all the new people. Hard to say what to do at this point but any pictures you can get would be great.
|
|
|
HELP!
Nov 6, 2008 12:53:43 GMT -5
Post by murdock6701 on Nov 6, 2008 12:53:43 GMT -5
I have observed no unusual tank behaviour - like I mentioned a day od so ago, I was very pleased at the community atmosphere - no fishing hovering at the waterline or at the bottom - no unusual swimming behaviour, no flicking off of rocks or plants, no unusual eating competition, plenty of food available, water parameters good, filter clean, temp 78....am at a loss in more ways than one.....
|
|
|
HELP!
Nov 6, 2008 12:57:07 GMT -5
Post by jonv on Nov 6, 2008 12:57:07 GMT -5
My figure at this point then would be try to get whatever you can for that one male and start with a new group and probably try to find a different supplier. I'll take a look around CF trading post, aquabid and eBay and see what's out there.
|
|
|
HELP!
Nov 6, 2008 13:02:35 GMT -5
Post by jonv on Nov 6, 2008 13:02:35 GMT -5
|
|
|
HELP!
Nov 6, 2008 13:10:57 GMT -5
Post by murdock6701 on Nov 6, 2008 13:10:57 GMT -5
thanks - at this time I am investing no more money in fish - let the little bastard be lonely and die of a broken heart - if he kills again, he's gone - needless to say, I'm pretty pissed off but that's life.....I am gone all day at work - I am only around my tanks for short periods in the evening due to firewood, hay, barn chores.....all my tanks are in my office where I am when I'm in the house - I pay as much attention as I can - BTW, the labs are doing great! hope by saying that I haven't just cursed that tank as well - sorry, spirits are low.....
|
|
|
HELP!
Nov 6, 2008 13:17:41 GMT -5
Post by Carl on Nov 6, 2008 13:17:41 GMT -5
This is a good point that goes with my thoughts as to potential pathogens. I have received literally thousands of shipped fish over the years, many in transit in varying conditions and time, my point is that some shipping problems would take as long as 30 days to appear, such as kidney failure due to high ammonia in the bag. I would often take random samples of ammonia (as well as pH) to know whether or not this is going to be an issue. PH shock often will kill immediately, however my observation is high, but not immediately lethal ammonia will kill at a later time.
What I did about it was two-fold: *In the case of constantly high ammonia levels is discontinue the purchase from these vendors *In th case of medium or occasional high ammonia levels is to add double or triple strength Methylene Blue as well as salt baths prior to addition to the tank to counter the toxic ammonia effects on the kidneys (in the case of marine I would use MB and FW baths). Admittedly the success in saving kidney damage was mixed, but the outcome was still better than doing nothing.
Carl
|
|
|
HELP!
Nov 6, 2008 13:26:41 GMT -5
Post by jonv on Nov 6, 2008 13:26:41 GMT -5
I've got to second that on Carl with the MB. In the past before Carl pointed this out for me, I'd gotten numerous shipments in and maybe I was just blessed with good luck and very healthy fish, and why I always suggest back to other people, the buyers I've bought from since I always got good fish from them. Anyways I agree that acclimating with that MB really really did good for my groups. Those Paratilapia Polleni ended up like 5 days in the bag and all of them made it and are doing quite well along with the Bythobates went 3 days over the weekend and growing quite rapidly. I cannot say at 100% certainty that it was due to the MB but I've noticed a slightly faster growth rate and activity rate post adding to the tank then I've seen in other auctions I've gotten in the past. I can't see anyone going wrong with using the MB either.
John man I'm really sorry you lost the others, but don't give up on this. Down the road, if you let me get this new brood grown out, I can send you some from that one. Will be the same mom, but different dad this time, and say like Feb-March time frame I should know males and females out of this group. If that Ram still has you down, just sell him and make that a second African tank, I'll get you some of the new brood and maybe if you'd like to mix them as they mature, that's open to you. Yellow Labs should be sexually mature as early as 6 months to 8 months in time. You've got one known nice big male in that group and your females will probably grow at a slightly slower rate. I can always get you another group. Shoot when I moved the yellows to the 180 last week I still counted 28!!! This female has given me some very nice first broods!!
|
|
|
HELP!
Nov 6, 2008 13:58:03 GMT -5
Post by murdock6701 on Nov 6, 2008 13:58:03 GMT -5
no one wants the ram, not even the lady that sold him to me - too hard to raise they claim.....like I said, I'll just chalk it up as a learning lesson for now - if he dies, I'll just go back to platys and swords and keep my african tank - right now I guess I'm just riding a bummer
|
|
|
HELP!
Nov 6, 2008 15:01:57 GMT -5
Post by jonv on Nov 6, 2008 15:01:57 GMT -5
Well maybe like I said, you could just change that to a second African tank too John. Think about this and don't let the negativity of this set you back. If you want to stay diverse and go with SA's and Africans in two different tanks, there's nothing wrong with that but maybe trying out a different Apisto is the way to go, but you got to look them over and see if anything interests you first.
|
|
|
HELP!
Nov 6, 2008 15:02:37 GMT -5
Post by jonv on Nov 6, 2008 15:02:37 GMT -5
I could always get an auction of something you liked and think will work and you could just trade me that for your Ram.
|
|
|
HELP!
Nov 6, 2008 16:49:21 GMT -5
Post by murdock6701 on Nov 6, 2008 16:49:21 GMT -5
found the other body today.....don't know how I could have missed it yesterday - it was late, and I was tired.....not a mark on it
|
|
|
HELP!
Nov 6, 2008 17:31:30 GMT -5
Post by murdock6701 on Nov 6, 2008 17:31:30 GMT -5
makes me feel a lot better to have found the body - was hoping my little buddy wasn't the killer - who knows, maybe he was, but I am preferring to think something was wrong w/ them from the start, although they seemed fine and happy and full of life for a week! - all together I bought 6 fish - I have one alive - pretty crappy track record - it's not the pet store owner's fault either - she never unpacked them but I will call her and advise her the fish she buys from whomever suck! guess I'll stick w/ petsmart....even though they don't stock what I want, w/ the exception of Jon, I prefer to see and select what I buy - thanks all for your support
|
|
|
HELP!
Nov 6, 2008 18:19:33 GMT -5
Post by bikeguy33 on Nov 6, 2008 18:19:33 GMT -5
sorry to be so late to add my 2 cents john. but i don`t believe at all this ram is the seriel killer in question. they are to timid to do that, and for a few rams a 20 gallon is fine. i as the others believe is that these were just poor stock. the reason i feel this is that if these rams were killed by 1 dominant male, it would have taken longer than 1 evening. these guys are nothing like a fresh water great white. takes time to kill a fish close to his own size. there would have been visible markers on them days before death.
1 option is would be to get ph around 7.2 in the african tank which is a lil high for rams, but acceptable, and add him in with the labs. the labs are a wee bit more aggressive, but if he is a bully, it`ll put him in his place.
|
|
|
HELP!
Nov 6, 2008 18:26:32 GMT -5
Post by murdock6701 on Nov 6, 2008 18:26:32 GMT -5
thanks my friend - are there any other SA cichlids he'd get along with? something I could buy locally? don't want him lonely - his best buddy is the silver dollar but he's close to 4 years old....
|
|
|
HELP!
Nov 6, 2008 18:55:11 GMT -5
Post by bikeguy33 on Nov 6, 2008 18:55:11 GMT -5
well....any dwarf such as apistogramma. it is a huge family of south american dwarfs and most are very shy and timid. they also do well with tetras and hatchets and such. no dwarf species will excede 4-5 cms and most are good in a 20 gallon. look at apistogramma. there are 50 or 60 different types. at least 1 or 2 should be available in your neck of the woods. most are quite pretty too.
|
|