does anyone know how to prevent bloat?
- Thread starter Freshwaterpredators
- Start date
shamrock;3060569; said:
I have to back Jason on this one, though you certainly can't ignore diet (especially on newly shipped fish that need to get some nutrition in them asap).
All the time we seem to hear people advising veggie foods to prevent bloat. That idea has its roots in Mbuna cichlid keeping as those fish consume a great deal of plant matter. To extend that assumption to an invert feeding, piscivorous, or even omnivorous CA cichlid isn't reasonable. If someone can show me a gut analysis of beani that is similar to some of the herbivorous Mbuna, I'd consider changing my mind.
We have to accept that many of these hard to get fish are comng in seriously stressed from collection/shipping and internally diseased (most being carriers in the first place, the stress allows them to become infected).
Once we tank raise a generation or two I think the ease of keeping beani will go way up.
i have to say i think you have made some valid points.. that south american cichlids are able to tolerate more protein then AFRICAN cichlids... but i still believe too much protein or too much food in general is the biggest culprit for causing bloat.. alot of others things come into play along with this..like how much activity and exercise they get, stress and tank mates and most of all water quality..cchhcc;3060663; said:
I don't believe bloat is caused by any 1 thing. But it may be the combination of un-optimum conditions that bring it about.
I do 30% water changes every other day, and still find haitiensus fry will bloat up at a moments notice. A slight temp drop can bring it out over night, while the adults seem to take it in stride.
The fry also seem to be unable to digest protein at a lower temp, and a veggie diet may increase survival rate at temps in the low 80s. Collection data I've seen ,state temps in the high 80s to mid 90s for haitiensus, which is much higher than most aquarists maintain, and maybe why we hear of so many young haitiensus failures.
I have also found placing a young hait that has done fine alone, will bloat up if placed with others of its kind or other species of equal dominence.
(unless of course the other is a receptive female.
I do 30% water changes every other day, and still find haitiensus fry will bloat up at a moments notice. A slight temp drop can bring it out over night, while the adults seem to take it in stride.
The fry also seem to be unable to digest protein at a lower temp, and a veggie diet may increase survival rate at temps in the low 80s. Collection data I've seen ,state temps in the high 80s to mid 90s for haitiensus, which is much higher than most aquarists maintain, and maybe why we hear of so many young haitiensus failures.
I have also found placing a young hait that has done fine alone, will bloat up if placed with others of its kind or other species of equal dominence.
(unless of course the other is a receptive female.
My experience with haitiensis was an experiment of sorts. I found some at an lfs and bought 3. They were approximately 2-2.5" at time of purchase. I put them in a 3 foot 30 gallon tank with an aquaclear 300/70/whatever it's called now (flow rate of 300 gallons per hour..lol) and a large powerhead. There were a couple of small clay pots, gravel but otherwise the tank was pretty bare. It was on the bottom of a 2 tier rack and there was very little light except for natural light in the daytime as the tank was in the garage.
I fed these guys once or twice a day with everything high protein I had...freeze dried krill, freeze dried bloodworms, kensfish cichlid pellets, earthworm food sticks, shrimp sticks etc. I didn't feed them anything spirulina or veggie based. I changed water approx. 30-50% weekly and the temp was most likely in the high 70's to low 80's.
All 3 fish thrived until the dominant male of the 3 doubled the others in size and killed them. In just a couple of months he was approx. 4-4.5" and in perfect health. Unfortunately, something happened <I don't remember exactly what....this was several years ago> and I had to move him into a much larger tank with other similar sized and larger cichlids...even though they were fairly non-aggressive in temperament...the hait died.
The biggest common denominator between all of the "bloat-prone" CA cichlids <istlanum, beani, haitiensis, several Thorichthys> is that they're mostly riverine species. They're all also fairly rare so the specimens we, the casual hobbyist, would be able to get ahold of would not be very far removed from the wild...they're most likely going to be F1 or F2...not like oscars, jack dempseys, firemouths etc that are so far removed from the wild.
This means, to me, that the most important factor when keeping these fish is keeping the water as oxygenated as possible...especially if you're going to raise the temp into the low to mid 80's...like cchhcc said, the higher the temp, the less oxygen will be in the water.
Oh yeah, I wanted to add that around that same time, I was a member of the Louisville Tropical Fish Fanciers club. Rusty Wessel is a member of this club as well so everytime I went down for a meeting I got to pick his brain about this or that <also got to see his fish house.....WOW
>. I asked him once specifically about haitiensis and his thoughts on the susceptibiliity to bloat and mentioned that many believe it to be diet related and that they need a lower protein diet. He was very surprised by this and said that, in the wild, they primarily feed on smaller fish so diet shouldn't have anything to do with it.
I fed these guys once or twice a day with everything high protein I had...freeze dried krill, freeze dried bloodworms, kensfish cichlid pellets, earthworm food sticks, shrimp sticks etc. I didn't feed them anything spirulina or veggie based. I changed water approx. 30-50% weekly and the temp was most likely in the high 70's to low 80's.
All 3 fish thrived until the dominant male of the 3 doubled the others in size and killed them. In just a couple of months he was approx. 4-4.5" and in perfect health. Unfortunately, something happened <I don't remember exactly what....this was several years ago> and I had to move him into a much larger tank with other similar sized and larger cichlids...even though they were fairly non-aggressive in temperament...the hait died.
The biggest common denominator between all of the "bloat-prone" CA cichlids <istlanum, beani, haitiensis, several Thorichthys> is that they're mostly riverine species. They're all also fairly rare so the specimens we, the casual hobbyist, would be able to get ahold of would not be very far removed from the wild...they're most likely going to be F1 or F2...not like oscars, jack dempseys, firemouths etc that are so far removed from the wild.
This means, to me, that the most important factor when keeping these fish is keeping the water as oxygenated as possible...especially if you're going to raise the temp into the low to mid 80's...like cchhcc said, the higher the temp, the less oxygen will be in the water.
Oh yeah, I wanted to add that around that same time, I was a member of the Louisville Tropical Fish Fanciers club. Rusty Wessel is a member of this club as well so everytime I went down for a meeting I got to pick his brain about this or that <also got to see his fish house.....WOW
>. I asked him once specifically about haitiensis and his thoughts on the susceptibiliity to bloat and mentioned that many believe it to be diet related and that they need a lower protein diet. He was very surprised by this and said that, in the wild, they primarily feed on smaller fish so diet shouldn't have anything to do with it.Exactly.......... Low protein diets for predacious fish just doesn't make sense.
The type of protein, the amount of fiber, the presence of other nutrients at lower levels, yes.......those are valid issues. But to put a blanket statement over "protein" isn't sensible.
Also, how many "bloated" fish were professionally diagnosed as such? Everytime a rare species dies it seems to be "bloat." As I said earlier, bloat is the most overused word in the hobby. "Bloated" has practically become a euphemism for "dying."
The type of protein, the amount of fiber, the presence of other nutrients at lower levels, yes.......those are valid issues. But to put a blanket statement over "protein" isn't sensible.
Also, how many "bloated" fish were professionally diagnosed as such? Everytime a rare species dies it seems to be "bloat." As I said earlier, bloat is the most overused word in the hobby. "Bloated" has practically become a euphemism for "dying."
JasonS-you do make an excellent point about high temps and more oxygen. For example, my Trimac-when I add warm water to the tank he breathes hard or goes to the bottom. Las Saturday I added colder water and he showed none of those signs.
And I agree that much like an Umbee you have to have a poop load of filtration and water flow in your tank.
And I agree that much like an Umbee you have to have a poop load of filtration and water flow in your tank.
I raised two groups of ODO' the first group i raised was in a 30 gallon it housed three odo 1 chipokea two jags and two umbees. All range from 1 two three inchs i feed them pellets, blood worms,krill,flakes and raw shrimp. They got all 5 diffrent foods a day i keep my temps and the higher 80's if thats not a high in protein diet i dont kno what is. I had one die when i first got it because i move her around from two diffrent tanks within two days, and i can tell she died of stress. Now i got 8 of them housed with three flowerhorn the size range from 1 to 5 inchs they are in a 55 and are on the same diet none of them died yet and guess what i do a water change about once every two weeks at 50% or less but mostly when i think my tank is getting dirty. IMO it caused by stress when they die and not from high protein diets.
