My new Altums have not been eating for 3 days

[illumnae]

Your altums are looking good. I went through alot of stress last year acclimitizing my altums. I'm halfway across the world, so instead of taking a short flight up to N. America, my altums took a nice trip over the ocean that lasted at least 20 hours, if not more. Probably transited at various locations too. By the time they got to me, they were not in very good shape.

What I found to be very effective was to dose them with a full dose of Furan-2 during their quarantine period, and keep them bulked up with live brine shrimp, as Tom has suggested. If they make it past 2 weeks alive, they're as hardy as rocks.

As for your rogue cardinal, you will find that as your altums grow in size, your cardinals will diminish in numbers. Your rogue cardinal may end up as the first to go down an altum's throat. I had 300 cardinals in my altum tank once. I now have 2, maybe 3.

[Orlando]

How are they doing today?

[johnnyboy2476]

I'm embrassed to say that not too good. I've lost three out 7 Altums. I've lost a lot of sleep last few nights. I have four Altums left. Two are in my main tank and are doing well - still very picky on eating. The other two are back in the Quarantine tank and are treated with Melafix and Pimafix with temp raised to 82. They were removed from my main tank because I saw that they are breathing heavily and had white patchy spots on their body. I think it was because of the Co2 injection in my main tank and they didn't like it too much. Of the four Altums that was transfered to the quanrantine tank, two did not make it to the next day.

[johnnyboy2476]

I think when i transfered the Altums to the quarantine tank, it created too much stress for them. What happend was that I used 100% of the water from the main tank to the quarantine tank. Bear in mind that in my main tank, I had good Co2 injection, and PH was brought down to 6.2. Soon after transfering them to the quarantine tank, without Co2 inejection, and strong aeration and circualtion, PH climbed up very fast and I think that caused too much stress to the fish. This morning, they are doing much better in the quarantine tank. I'm anxious so see how they are doing tonight when I get back from work.

[plantbrain]

Dreaded skin fungus, very hard to beat and you have to catch it very early on.

The move , not the pH, caused the stress.
pH moved without any real issue for fish if it's solely due to CO2 content.

We change water, 50-80% and have 1 full unit shifts during a weekly water change over many years without any ill effect on fish due to pH. I'd run the temp warmer and try what you can to kill the skin fungus.

They do better than larger discus with high CO2, which is about 40-45ppm for their limit.

I had them in my 180.
I did some replanting and uprooted way too much one day, pulled lots of muck up, they got the skin fungus 2 days later and never recovered.

They where already eating very aggressively, very frisky, not the least bit shy, pigs really, and healthy. One small mistake did them in.

Other folks have done similar things and lost them the same way, even in good health and acclimated etc. Too much disturbances to the planted tanks and they go south fast.

Some Loricariidae are pretty CO2 sensitive, much more so than discus and Altums. Getting them to feed correctly and disease free is tough as well.

Altums where pretty easy if you can not mess things up too much in the tank and are careful when moving them. Keep them warmer, fed often, watch for any signs of body fungus etc.

Hope you can save the remaining fish.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[johnnyboy2476]

The disease is spreading quickly on the body. I did 50 percent water change and added stronger medication. Since I don't know if it is fungal or bacteria - I added both malachite green and tetracycline.

[Echinodorus]

Are we supposed to mix medication?
I would just do the Malachite green, once it´s probably fungus.
Make sure you put some black back ground instead that bright blue.

[Orlando]

How do they look today?

[jczz1232]

i would raise the temp to 85-86 and treat them with salt. How often you do water changes? If yes how much you do?

[jczz1232]

John where you got your altums from which fish store?

[Cbwmn]

I haven’t read all the replies.
On an angelfish forum, I once read that when they aren’t eating,
raise the tank temperature to 88 or so for a couple of days.
Then drop it down to normal temperature.
It may be worth a try.
If you search for Angelfish forum II, you can probably find that post.
Charles

[johnnyboy2476]

It was a disaster, they all died. I was trying to encourge them to feed in the quarantine tank by giving them assorted different food such as live brine shrimp, frozen bloodworm, and live blackworm. They didn't want to eat and they just gradually went downhill. The white patch on the body spread even under medications.

I used Malachite green and API Erythomayacin. I kept the temp at 82 and did 50% water change everynight. I let the tap water sit overnight and also treated with a little bit of Prime. When I do water change I make sure the temp are around the same. I also vacum all the uneaten food and kept the tank bare or without any substrates.

Today, when I clean out my quarantine tank and the aquaclear 50, I think I know what I did wrong. Since I know that biological filter would not work under medication, I removed the foam block and the carbon block. I thought I was good by diligently vacum all the uneatan food. But, some of if still got stuck in the aquaclear, around the motor housing, and underneath the removable plastic housing for the foam block and carbon. I think this cause the water parameter to deteriorate.

BTW, I got my altums in Chinatown - on Broome street I think.

[Ariel301]

Oh no, that's too bad! Sorry to hear you lost them.

[Orlando]

[illumnae]

Sorry I didn't check in earlier I could have helped some. The heavy breathing near the surface and white fungal like patches on the body indicate that your altums succumbed to columnaris. This is very common in newly imported altums. I lost one of my batches of altums to this same disease.

As stated in my earlier post, the best way to handle this is to put all newly bought altums through a full dose of API Furan-2. This gets rid of the columnaris from the outset. Heavily aeriate the water and keep it heated, and in a week or 2 your altums should be out of the danger zone.

Since losing that one batch, I've successfully raised 2 other batches by using this method. After I completed this procedure, i did a huge move of my altums from their QT tank at my parents' place, to their new home at my place which is 15 minutes drive away. The altums had to sit in a pail that was sloshing around at the back of the car...very jerky, very stressful and they all were fine after the move. One year on, I still have all of them without a single loss.

If your altums survive the 2 week mark without columnaris, you're usually set with them for years to come. They're extremely hardy after the initial acclimitization period.