theoden
Full Member
"They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains the hottest blood of all."
Posts: 86
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Post by theoden on Sept 14, 2008 22:15:11 GMT -5
Love the fish, especially the albino cat! I used to have a pair of albino oscars. Had to trade them in at the end of the school year (couldn't put them with the community fish at home). Would love to have an albino cat like that!
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Post by jonv on Sept 15, 2008 21:59:33 GMT -5
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Post by jonv on Oct 2, 2008 14:36:09 GMT -5
I just finished round 1 of a quick cure dose on the whole main tank, and just dosed number 2 now. I figure by the time the meds I ordered arrive, I should just be completing round 3 dosing and ready to hit that Columnaris hard with a double front of Furan II and Kanaplex. I'm tired of seeing afflicted fish wasting away from this disease.
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Post by brenda on Oct 2, 2008 14:59:17 GMT -5
I hope all goes well for you Jon!!! Hopefully you can get rid of this.
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Post by Carl on Oct 2, 2008 16:37:10 GMT -5
I just finished round 1 of a quick cure dose on the whole main tank, and just dosed number 2 now. I figure by the time the meds I ordered arrive, I should just be completing round 3 dosing and ready to hit that Columnaris hard with a double front of Furan II and Kanaplex. I'm tired of seeing afflicted fish wasting away from this disease. How many fish are still showing Columnaris? Try and remove as many stressors as well as Columnaris is a disease of opportunity as are most bacterial pathogens in aquariums and in the case of Columnaris Stress seems to be the number one opportunistic cause from both my experience and university studies I have read. GOOD LUCK!!! Carl
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Post by jonv on Oct 2, 2008 18:28:49 GMT -5
One of the juvenile Nimbo's has some very bad body rot going on. Massive white patches on one side of the body, and not so bad on the other. One has mild white patches, and a third has some bad tail rot going. A few different adults have some minor body spots going on them. I had seven juvenile Nimbo's in there, I'll be damned if I can find the 7th one though. Can only find six now. It's funny how it's in the main tank only and I had those Nimbo's over in the 100 for a good 3-4 months, never showed any signs of this until I moved them to the main tank.
I know what you're saying about the stressors Carl, but when it comes to Africans, what's going to happen is as soon as I move out a dominant, someone else is going to step up to fill that void and I'd end up having to keep every fish in it's own tank basically. In some senses, stress is just something you have to deal with hand in hand when keeping Africans. Unless you just keep a single species, and a proper harem of like one male and four or five females, there isn't much getting around stress. Good phrase on this one, it's just the nature of the beast.
I'd whole heartedly agree however if this was a pure community tank only. I can try to step up the water change routine to maybe 2-3 times a week, so the decor keeps getting moved around. I have a suspicion however, this might increase the aggression, not dilute it. As John (8) explained it to me a year or so ago, the re-arrangement allows weaker or picked on fish have a shot to find it's own niche, BUT you also reset the boundry definitions and in so doing that, it would in theory trigger some new found aggression as one male is going to pick a spot and try to ward everyone else off from it.
In the long run though, I can't wait for those meds to get here and I can just basically nuke this stuff out. Figure three treatments of quick cure immediately followed up with three rounds of both Kanaplex and Furan II, this should wipe this stuff out and then some I'd imagine. I plan to also run those medicated shells in the tank as well for a good 10-14 days just in case that second round of Kana/Furan doesn't kill it all off, so the med shells can go to work on any possible surviving groups of the disease.
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Post by jonv on Oct 2, 2008 18:30:42 GMT -5
What I find also funny here, is the age must have some sort of factor to fighting this off. When the mother of these fish, figure was 2 years old or more, got this, she became rather inactive for the most part, would try to stay near the top of the water only, even to the point of exposing her dorsal fin out of the water, and just didn't have much life to her at all before she died.
This one of her offspring that has these patches all over the body is quite readily active and moving around in the tank with the rest of them.
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Post by Carl on Oct 2, 2008 19:57:05 GMT -5
There is not much I can add, as you have thought this through very well. I know that in my experience African Cichlids can sometimes be a challenge to keep the stressors down as to aggression. I guess my main concern is to end the cycle of medications, without a new outbreak getting started due to aggression or other factors such as stress from poor water conditions brought on by the medications themselves. Luckily I have forund Kanamycin to me relatively inert to the nitrifying bacteria and Furan 2 not quite as safe, but certainly less harsh than some medications such as Erythromycin or Tetracycline Carl
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Post by jonv on Oct 2, 2008 22:13:53 GMT -5
My figures on that part, at least about the water conditions is to use the Prime figuring there's going to be bacterial loss, and just run the Prime until it recycles itself out. Plus, once the meds are gone, and after a couple weeks with some good carbon and poly pads to make sure I got it all, I can start jump starting this by borrowing some of the bio max from the other three filters. Just enough to add in some live bacteria, but not damage the colony in the other filters either. A few cubes here and there should be enough to populate at least one of those Fluvals completely in about a week or so. One of the big blessings and beautiful things of having multiple tanks and similar filters ;D
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Post by jonv on Oct 3, 2008 6:57:02 GMT -5
This was last week when I first noted those body spots on the Venustus Juvies. It has gotten worse over the week, however I am happy to say that the Quick Cure seems to be slowing this down very good. Got my Obliqedens in yesterday. Rather nice sizes on these. I want to issue a warning though if anyone does use Aquabid, to avoid auctions from rcc68sss. This person for starters seems to be English communicating challenged, doesn't seem to realize that you do get a tracking number with Priority Mail, and it took me a week to get through their head, they were billing me the wrong amount and for the wrong fish and auction. Nice fish, but the seller isn't too bright. As best I can tell, I'd assume the males are the ones the show and develop the bright red on the body and blue across the face. It would hold true to males showing the nice colors. I would also like to say, if this is true, a couple of the smaller orange looking ones, were chasing each other VERY aggressively this morning over food. Rather odd if these are supposed to be a pair of females. Everyone this morning was "resting" along the bottom in the main tank. Not sure if this is like waking up tired or like they were still sleeping or something. I was able to walk up to the tank and get these. I wanted to try again to try to ID this one female. This is the one that spawned with the Metriclima Zebra. I just wish I knew what this female is though. Second one is a Peacock of some sorts, not sure which. Very brown body and plain but not sure what species she belongs to either.
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Post by brenda on Oct 3, 2008 9:03:47 GMT -5
Nice Obliqs...The females should just have the black bars and some yellowish fins...I have noticed my female Victorians actually chase and fight each other..They even face off like males. Maybe, this is a Victorian thing.
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Post by jonv on Oct 3, 2008 16:20:34 GMT -5
Started round 1 of treatment. Stopped dosing on the quick cure, did water change and added in one treatment of Kanaplex and Furan II with a medicated shell to assist that. Columnaris has had it's last days in my tank.
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Post by jonv on Oct 3, 2008 23:00:36 GMT -5
I was able to capture some better shots of those Obliques after doing a water change tonight, and got some other nice ones I'd like to put up. Might be a little long but these are pretty good. Starting with the better shots of the Obliques, I can only assume the ones showing the nice red on the body have to be male and the plainer ones are female. I would also think judging by their size, any submissive ones would show at least a little red to some degree. These are all about a good 2 inches and following the typical African pattern, I'd assume the smaller ones are also a good sign of being female too. It does appear there are two males and four females out of the six I got. Ones I think are male: Possible females: Trying to show Bill the deformity on the Bythobates I picked up. Not the best shot, but if you look just under the jaw and to the left, that's not something on the glass. That's the protrusion off the jaw. It looks like it's jaw bone is sticking out. Other shots of the Bythobates. It should be good to note, I see a distinct red look emerging off one, but it'll never hold still long enough to capture a good shot of it. I don't know much at all about this species, and using intuition that this is likely a sign of a male. Got a really nice close up of the Polleni: And some odds and end ones. Some of the fish caught some really nice looks: Had to get this one up And then it was hiding peeking out of the rocks Some of the younger Ps. Flavus are good to catch them with a deer in headlights look LOL Hop Lo on a nice chill out spot And I moved about half the Albino Protomelas Steveni's up to the tank (24 total). Five did die and I assume that's from some aggression as this is a very active tank. I was just telling Eve earlier, this tank I've never seen a group SO active, and you could feed them and 10 minutes later walk over, and they'd act like you never have fed them their whole life. They really swarm the tank when you go by. This just to show how small those 1 month olds are.
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Post by 8 in the Corner on Oct 3, 2008 23:28:37 GMT -5
Jon, Nice looking botia. Isn't that an angelicus? I love all the botias and loaches. John
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Post by jonv on Oct 3, 2008 23:30:16 GMT -5
Not sure the latin/scientific name but I got it at the store sold as a Polka Dot Botia. Wanted to try something different. He/She likes to slink around the tank like a slinky, many times on it's side even. A true oddball with a nice pattern on the body to look at. Thank you my friend.
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Post by jonv on Oct 6, 2008 0:41:11 GMT -5
While the main tank is still under treatment I have been taking more shots and spending quite a bit of time watching the 100 gallon tank. I caught some decent stills of the Paratilapia Polleni and the Bythobates, along with a few of the yellows. Next week, I'll be sending John (Murdock) a small group of these and hope they grow well and breed for him. I have to say, these Tilapia's are very interesting. If you watch them at first, they appear to be very laid back and mellow, and as Bill mentioned, they have also at times shown to be quite the nasty little aggressors. I wasn't able to get on video a showdown between two rather dark Polleni's but I have to say, they appear to fight more like South Americans do. There is little circling of each other, but rather a face to face stare down, and if one doesn't back down, one will charge forward and try to back the other off, and there was a minor lip lock fight, but it didn't last long. I'd really hate to see this much aggression that early, because at their size now, I fear very much to put them in the 180 with the much larger ones in there. I may have to rework the 75 and maybe isolate a couple over to that tank just to be safe. On the Bythobates, I have noticed about half of them getting very very dark and a couple beginning to morph into a reddish orange look. It's hard to capture these guys good, but I was able to get a couple shots to try to show this. I'd been trying to employ John (8's) technique of staying in just one area, waiting for someone to "investigate" the camera looking into the glass. You certainly have to be very patient doing this, and my arms got very tired too. I have some video shots of the fish interacting as well, and I'm certain some of you will be very pleased to see just how dark those Polleni are getting in just a month of being in the tank. Paratilapia Pollenis: A lighter looking one, maybe this is looking at a male and female difference Bythobates: Best looks of the orange red morphs taking place here Labidochromis Careleus: These fish are about 2-2.5 months old. I start to see a little bit of bar formation on some, but not terribly bad. I'd feel safer at saying they are void of the ugly bars if they continue to have this look at 6 months of age. Half of this group too, is very nice and pure yellow. I think this is a male judging by the amount of food this one gets and you can see the enlarged belly area, and a little darkening on the dorsal and pectoral fins These ones not sure, but have some very nice solid yellow coloring. HOPING these are female and I can breed them back to improve the quality of the offspring next generation Don't know if it means anything or not, but this was about 15-20 mins after a rather decent sized feeding of frozen bloodworms.
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Post by eve on Oct 6, 2008 1:01:20 GMT -5
on the yellows, the first 3 pics, it's definitely a male
don't know if the last 4 pics are from one fish, but it looks like a male, but i can't make out an eggspot check if there is an eggspot, if not then it's a female if there is an eggspot, then it's a male
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Post by jonv on Oct 6, 2008 1:15:04 GMT -5
Thanks Eve. I was just more or less aiming to get the quality of yellows showing. I'm feeling excited a good number of this group, total of 20, will end up without the black bars. I've been looking more into who's getting the food and growing faster then trying to look at the colors on the fins and spots. They seem to be growing pretty well, at the 10 week point. I'm not sure if moving them up to the 100 to give more space was all the beneficial though. They still seem to be growing about the same rate as when they were in the 15.
I'd hope I get at least 5-6 females out of this group so I can bulk up the main tank and hopefully land John (Murdock) a few females as well. You still have yours? Maybe if you have a small tank, you could take a few also and try mixing your line with these
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Post by eve on Oct 6, 2008 1:22:46 GMT -5
yw no, i gave mine away already months ago i will also give away finally, my auratus tomorrow, which are well over 2 inch now not planning on keeping africans no more, to many bad experiences when adults wonna try my hands on krib breeding the eggspot on the yellows is a dead give away!!!
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Post by Carl on Oct 6, 2008 13:23:35 GMT -5
Jon, As you know, the venustus are an agressive species. I think that injury to the shoulder area of your fish is due to the submissive response to an agressive move by a more dominant fish.
I'm sure you have seen fish turn sideways when threatened. If the dominant one does not see enough submission, it will go ahead and attack as the fish is turned sideways and if it happens more than a few times, the result is a wound on the shoulder or side of the submissive fish. Angels are famous for this kind of wound inflicted on their companions (even their mates).
John This is an excellent point John/8! In private conversations and here on the forum my strong feeling as to Columnaris is that this (along with many bacterial pathogen afflicting aquariums) is opportunistic and Columnaris in particular stressors such as these tend to be a major factor in this pathogen as compared to water quality which is more common in Aeromonas infections. Carl
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