Cool, glad to hear it. Just monitor the nitrate levels and do wcs as needed.
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Dying RTC
- Thread starter aropwn
- Start date
I disagree from plenty of experience and reading of that of others. It is usually recommended to reduce the dosage for scaleless fish. That's all.
I does not look ok. The eyes are heavily clouded. The skin has excess mucus. The fins are clamped. All classic symptoms of an illness or bad water or both.
The suggestion of testing the appetite I do like because it will reveal the extent of the decease and/or bad water... however, if it is bad water, feeding will only make it worse.
Nitrates are impossible to test for correctly. See here: http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=36231&hilit=+nitrate
Yet, it is most usually recommended to have them under 10-20 ppm according to a reliable, reputable liquid test-tube test (like by the API kit) by the experts. If you are using test-strips, forget about the numbers. They are meaningless. It is a yes or no, much or little test.
BTW, in the wild Amazon, the nitrates are at zero in the main, deep river channels, where big RTCs live! That's the ultimate goal, not 40 ppm.
Aropwn, it is obvious to all involved you don't test for ammonia and nitrites - the million times more toxic substances than nitrates.
1. If you don't do that, it is impossible for us to help you.
2. If you intend to be a serious hobbyist and keep a serious fish (like the ones you have), you must test your water for all 5 parameters I mentioned or, at the very least, find an LFS that will do it for you. Many LFSs here in the US do it for free. But you will not be a serious and earnest fish-keeper without doing at least these most basic of tests yourself. I buy API master test kit (NH3, NO2, NO3, and pH two ranges) for $24. Lasts years. Thousand of tests each bottle.
3. The ammonia and nitrite tests determine the "cycledness" of your tank. Nothing else! They must be at zero, then your tank is cycled.
4. Gill curl is irreversible. Can be cut back with a scalpel but chances are still against you that it will gorw back fine or even grow back at all.
Even if the test kits are not accurate, it gives an indication of problem. For example, if a test kit indicate 120 ppm of nitrate, it would be wise to do wc until the level reads below 40 ppm.
And if the goal is 0 ppm, the I suggest people go buy a river. I do not give out useless idealistic answers.
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0-5 ppm is easily achievable in rightly designed and planted tanks but, of course, I could not agree more with all you say when it comes to monster-fish tanks. It was merely the way you phrased your last sentence: "You want your nitrate to be around 40 ppm" that read ambiguous to me and could be misconstrued by an inexperienced keeper as some benchmark or an ideal, if you will, to shoot for.
And, BTW, gill curl is a clear and strong indication that the water you are keeping your pets in is terrible: not enough oxygen and too many pollutants such as ammonia and nitrite. High nitrate causes digestion problems well before the gill curl. That's the direct result of overfeeding, meaning insufficient bio-filtration/too small a filter, and not testing the water.
