Rope fish Floating Issue - Help!!

[twentyleagues]

Ropes are notoriously difficult to keep alive for the first couple months after capture and import. They use terrible catch methods on these guys. I'm lucky when I got most of mine my lfs does a great job on the qt and debugging but you pay for it in the fish prices. The other 3 came from someone who had them for over a year.
If not treated at the lfs imo you need to treat with a anti parasitic and feed with whatever it will eat enough to fatten them up.

 

[kno4te]

I’d give it a couple of days with meds and Epsom salt before feeding.

I used to feed mine broken pieces of massivore and cut filets of fish.

 

[tfreema]

I’d give it a couple of days with meds and Epsom salt before feeding.

I used to feed mine broken pieces of massivore and cut filets of fish.

So, you would recommend still medicating even though the guy that is left is showing no symptoms? My plans were to do frequent water changes and observe.

 

[tfreema]

Ropes are notoriously difficult to keep alive for the first couple months after capture and import. They use terrible catch methods on these guys. I'm lucky when I got most of mine my lfs does a great job on the qt and debugging but you pay for it in the fish prices. The other 3 came from someone who had them for over a year.
If not treated at the lfs imo you need to treat with a anti parasitic and feed with whatever it will eat enough to fatten them up.

The kicker is that this guy had gotten into the overflow system at the lfs so he had been there at least weeks and based on his size, the manager thinks a couple months. They realized when the ones they ordered for me disappeared. So that was kind of a quarantine period. And why I am questioning my method of feeding. He was eating the meal worms really well so I was offering them a lot and trying to mix in the other foods. He turned his nose up at them. I thought hey, at least he is eating, but maybe I should have been more diligent in making sure he had a varied diet by withholding the meal worms letting him get hungry enough to eat other stuff. He was not skinny by far. Actually pretty fat.

 

[kno4te]

So, you would recommend still medicating even though the guy that is left is showing no symptoms? My plans were to do frequent water changes and observe.

I’d suggest medicate.

 

[tfreema]

I think I will wait for the new meds to be here Friday and start the dosing schedule with it. That way I know that first dose is effective.

Meantime, large water changes every other day.

 

[twentyleagues]

Agree carnivore or massivore pellets usually get them to at least try pellets. Then you just have to try other pellets. All my polys/ropes really like the bug bites pleco bites. I also feed chopped tilapia and maybe once a month some catfish.

 

[tfreema]

Awesome. I already have pleco and cichlids bug bites. The butterfly fish eat the floating cichlid ones.

I have tried talapia, shrimp, meal worms, red wriggler worms, mysis shrimp, blood worms, silversides, shrimp pellets, hikari bottom feeder wafers. Now I am ordering small bags of carnivore and massivore to try.

 

[twentyleagues]

Carnivore and massivore are the same just size is different. Just get Carnivore. Of all the stuff you tried what did they eat? Chop up the tilapia real small it will help. Worms should be gobbled up. Mine love black worms. But hard to get them alot. Every once in a while. Ropes need smaller foods.

 

[magpie]

When I got mine they took a while to get feeding well, but they would take live worms of any kind (black, blood, earth, wigglers) to start, and silversides (which I think are stinkier than tilapia). I used to soak my pellets in bloodworm juice (from the frozen cubes) to get them to warm up to pellets and they eventually took them. Once they took the pellets they would eat anything. (But always preferred the non-pellet meals. )

I've not heard of feeding mealworms, that's interesting. I have a bearded dragon, though. I wonder if the rope might have had a hard time processing the chitin? I don't know... maybe others feed mealworms to polys without issue, I'm just throwing that out there in case.

Sorry to hear about your loss. I love ropes. I was lucky enough to have my LFS as the Wet Spot and they are good about treating their fish before they sell. Mine had no issues with parasites, but I do know that ropes can struggle initially like twenty mentioned. I hope your other guy does OK and the 1st one's death was just a fluke.