sick altum

[dreamer]

bought 4 altum last week and they are doing well until today.

symptoms
-2 stop eating or spit the food out.
- these 2 have some kind of red patch on their mouth as if they've hit the glass??
- bit of fin rot
- 1 has rightside pectoral fin clamped

in 3' tank with 5 cories and 8 1" discus
ph ~7.5
temp 29c
ammonia nil
1 larger sponge filter and eheim 2217

did 50% waterchange today and added 4tablespoon of salt

any suggestion? please .....

[Proteus]

first of all, if possible seperate the fish, get the Altums on there own...

make treatment easier, and minimises the chance of disease spread.

[kevkoi]

Where did these altums come from?
Altums are touchy touchy touchy things from some sources.

A while ago, we got some "wild" altums from a supplier in Germany.... We imported 50fish, they arrived in bad shape, wouldn't feed and broke out in bacterial problems. Of the 50, we had half of them survive. We were paraniod about buying anymore altums..... until....

Recently on one of the european exporters list was listed some *VERY RARE* tank bred "Orinoco altums". The price of these tank bred specimens was almost double the price of the wilds, but we took a chance and imported these angels...

THEY WERE SUPERB! We got 15 ('cos of paranoia that they would keel over and die again!), all 15 came in great and were feeding on micropellets the next day. Hand feeding bloodworms in the next few days and were so comfortable in their tank... All came out of quarantine in EXCELLENT health. A good mate of mine got 8 of them and they are in his 8x2x2 growing very well. Another friend got 2 to go with 5 other "wilds" he got from another supplier. Merrilyn (Ladyred) has 3 and I hope they are doing well. The others were sold to an aquarium shop up central coast and they are also doing well. I'm tracking the health status of these altums as I am really convinced that the tank bred ones are much much better in health.

The tank bred altums were more expensive to buy, but personally, well worth the money..... From now on, we will only buy these tank bred specimens when available.

:P

[dreamer]

i bought them from aquapets last sunday while picking up some cories but i just couldnt resist the temptation they were happily accept pellets, frozen bloodworm and frozen brineshrimp until yesterday ...

i lost 1 this morning ... damn ... the other 3 not looking too good either, the tankmates; cories and discus are fine ...

should i put them in separate tank? a 2 footer is all i have left ...

thanks

[kevkoi]

I would suggest putting them in a 2ft tank, keeping it relatively dimly lit. drop the pH to about 6.3-6.5 and start treating with a broad spectrum bacterial medication. It's a shot-gun treatment.... it may or may not work.

[BlackGhost]

try and get promethisul. It is a great broad spectrum med. I would put them in the 2ft tank. Is the 2ft cycled? If not you can put the promethisul in the main tank and it wont affect the other fish. And keep the blue colour.

[dreamer]

i will use the sponge filter from the main tank. dont know if it is coincidence.. the fish appear sick the dat after the water change ... i used straight tap water .. all my discus tank use straight tap water with no harm ...

for now i will just raise the temp and add salt ... if this doesnt help then i will try the broad spectrum ...is this easy to obtain? btw the promethisul sounds like methyl blue?

thanks

[Proteus]

dreamer... the strongest bit of advice i can give you and ANYONE in Sydney...

DO NOT USE WATER STRAIGHT FROM THE TAP

Make sure it is double if not triple dosed with water ager as well, age it for 24-48 hours with aeration and you will be fine.

The lower our water levels get the worse the quality is getting, they are hitting the water with extra chloromine, chlorine & copper.

I lost an entire tank of excellent quality fish due to toxic/copper poisoning - cause - Sydney water.

I cannot stress this enough, water is now at 39% levels, and mandatory restrictions for home use come into place soon.

[dreamer]

i would've aged the water given the space, however, space in apartment ..specially in cbd is limited. putting barrel in the living room is out of the question .... i've used straigh tap for over a year ... but i guess .. this luck doesnt apply when it comes to altum

the hospital tank now resides in my bathroom with with 20ltrs bucket for aging water ... i hope i can move freely there

[Proteus]

You must remember that nobody ever expected our water to get this low...

so extreme measures need to be implemented. If you have high value fish, both in terms of $$$ and what you personally like, then an ugly water aging bin all of a sudden starts looking really good...