[Jonney_Boy]

Short Version, 75 gal community tank, one sick ram. White "pimple" on it's top fin area. EI dosed tank, co2 injected, also dosing a little bit of excel.


What has been done so far, raised temp to 26deg C and added melafix.


Long Version.

I have a 75 gal community tank. Water tests look normal (no ammonia, nitrates and nitril looks ok). Tank is fairly low temp at 24 deg C normally.

Rams where purchased as healthy adults and have been in the tank for 8+ months. So far they have been lovely. Peaceful and healthy.... untill now.
The Female has now what appears to be a white pimple on it's head. It is also much darker than it usually is, turning almost into a chocholate orange colour.


Now, I also have another 20 gal tank with a few rams in there (4 pairs) and last month suddenly lost 2 of them. This tank is dosed with excel, + EI. The tank is also run MUCH warmer (26-27C). The first one, also had a pimple outbreak on his head.. It ended up with 4-5 pimples.

I noticed this in the morning, and moved to a QT tank, upped the temp sligtly and dosed macryn 1...... it was dead by the end of the day.

Next ram got "fat" / bloated. Again I moved to QT tank and upped the temp. Tried pimafix + melafix + salt + increased temp this time... it too was dead by the end of the day.


So, now a month later I'm having difficulities with the one in the 75 gal.... what can I do?

btw... tanks recieve currently water changes twice a week... 25% on wed and 50% on sat.

Update as I type this: Another ram has passed away in the 20 gal tank. Even as of this afternoon the ram looked "normal". by dinner time it was dead. The wierd thing was that this ram looked perfectly normal, even after it was dead it's colour was still ok.

The tank currently is running a 25w UV + two 2236 eheim filter + AC110. Water temp is at 28 deg C. One thing that I did find odd was that it has always seem to be the male fish that has trouble in the 20 gal. Of the 4 pairs of rams I have in there, i've lost 3 males!

Any help or insight would be appreciated. I did another water change for good measure.

I also have a few pics of the sick ram in the 75 gal, unfortunally I don't have enough posts in to post the link yet.

 

[bherren1]

Without a pic it will be hard to try and diagnose what your fish has. The first thing that comes to mind, especially when talking about S.American cichlids, is Hole-In-The-Head Disease. In The Manual Of Fish Health Dr.Chris Andrews has this to say, "This is an infection of Hexamita which are flagellate protozoans. Hexamita often exists as a latent, or low-level, infection in the intestines of many tropical fish. It most notably affects cichlids and gouramis. Various factors such as poor water quality, overcrowding, low oxygen levels, changes in temperature and poor diet may cause the parasites to multiply."
Dr. Andrews goes on to point out that "it is seldom realized that most apparently healthy fish are usually carrying a range of potential fish pathogens in or on their bodies. These latent infections probably do the fish little harm, but their importance to fish hobbyists cannot be overemphasized. This means that even within the healthiest and best kept aquariums lurk pathogens waiting to cause problems for the less-than-vigilant hobbyist. For the most part, caring for fishes and their environment will allow for the natural immune reactions of fish to keep these pathogens in check. If environmental conditions deteriorate, however, this may reduce the resistance of fish and result in an outbreak of disease. Unfortunately, even after successfully treating the outbreak, the once pathogenic infections may return to the latent condition in the surviving fish-waiting for the next down turn in the environment."
The recommended treatment that can be added directly into the water column is dimetridazole and metronidazole. This can be obtained at a LFS or only through a veterinarian in some countries.
Check your parameters, keep them as stable as possible, and keep up with tank maintenance. Ensure that your testing equipment is reliable. If your test kit is older than 6 months or so look into getting a new one. Make sure you're feeding quality foods. Try and determine what has changed that could have brought on your issues. Have you recently added new flora or fauna? Have you changed your methods of water changes? Do you add water from tap to tank, or treat new water before putting it in the tank? These are the types of things you need to ask yourself to try and find the cause and fix it. If you only treat the symptoms and never fix the cause you will most assuredly run into problems again somewhere down the line. Good luck.

 

[Jonney_Boy]

With now 6 posts under my belt, I can post pics
http://img32.imageshack.us/i/img8675a.jpg/
http://img63.imageshack.us/i/img8677t.jpg/
http://img26.imageshack.us/i/img8719t.jpg/
http://img11.imageshack.us/i/img8735l.jpg/

 

[Jonney_Boy]

After reading the above post, I dont' "think" it's hold in the head disease...

As for changes in the tank, there are only a few I can think off...

1) Lack of o2. The 75 gal was having a small breakout of BBA (as you can see in the driftwood). I had the co2 up fairly high lately, with minimal surface agitation, I was running 4 bbs. The drop checker on the other side of the tank was showing yellow and the ph meter was shoing 1.4 to 1.5 ph points drop (with a KH of about 3-4). The temp on the 75 was also fairly low as I had attempted to keep Dwarf hairgrass in it... .this would mean about 23-24 deg C... Filters are cleaned regulary and water is changed fairly often (tap water + prime).

As for for the 20 gal, I have recently (3 months ago) started dosing excel to this tank. I have tossed a little bit into the 75 gal too every once in a while (very little amounts compaired to the tank size). I'm using Metracide 14 day right now which to my understanding is the same as Excel. Would the rams be sensitive to this chemical by any chance? The endler fry's in my 10 gal are doing fine even tho i'm dosing the same chemical (in a heavier dose) in tha tank.

Sorry for the long posts.. I'm kind of at a loss as to what is causing the fish deaths....

Both tanks are now running at approx 27 deg C with LOTS of surface movement. Co2 has been cut to a minimum. While I know this will cause a huge BBA outbreak, I rather save the fish at this point. Both tanks are now on daily 20% water changes. Any other suggestions?

 

[sewingalot]

See if any of these pictures help. http://badmanstropicalfish.com/fish_palace/tropicalfish_disease_identification.html I wish I could help more, I am fighting a similar mystery illness. Did you get each of the rams from the same source?

 

[Jonney_Boy]

All the rams in the 20 gal came from one source... (and in fact same batch of fry's).... the rams in the 75 (which I have the pics of) came from a second source and where pruchased as adults

 

[bryony]

I've been using the Mardel's fish disease chart for years (the kind that comes included in their medications), I was pulling them out of the treatment boxes but here's a link: http://fins.actwin.com/articles/disease/chart1.php.

 

[sewingalot]

Check out velvet. It does have similar symptoms to what you describe.