Finally wild caught cichlids in Panama
- Thread starter duanes
- Start date
I always expect any wild fish to arrive with some type of parasites, and have not been proven wrong.
One of the Andinoacara seems to have a touch of Lymphocystis (or something similar), and a Roeboides tetra and another Andinoacara a touch of ich.
The Lymph is viral, so no effective treatment.
To treat the tank for ich, (there are no LFSs on the island, or even stores that sell enough salt in the kind of bulk needed for 180+ gallons). Everything expect ocean fish or fruit like papayas, or star fruit requires a ferry to the mainland.
To treat for ick, I calculate the tank needs almost 6 lbs of salt, but..
since the sea is less than 50 yards away, between 2 and 3 gallons of 35 ppt sea water to get a target salinity of 3.5ppt.
Im hoping the salinity won't destroy the plants, and the shrimp, but sometimes sacrificing 1 to save many (in the parlance of our time)......
One of the Andinoacara seems to have a touch of Lymphocystis (or something similar), and a Roeboides tetra and another Andinoacara a touch of ich.
The Lymph is viral, so no effective treatment.
To treat the tank for ich, (there are no LFSs on the island, or even stores that sell enough salt in the kind of bulk needed for 180+ gallons). Everything expect ocean fish or fruit like papayas, or star fruit requires a ferry to the mainland.
To treat for ick, I calculate the tank needs almost 6 lbs of salt, but..
since the sea is less than 50 yards away, between 2 and 3 gallons of 35 ppt sea water to get a target salinity of 3.5ppt.
Im hoping the salinity won't destroy the plants, and the shrimp, but sometimes sacrificing 1 to save many (in the parlance of our time)......
Will be interesting to see if they maintain the behavior beyond the safety in numbers stage.
Good thread.
Ich seems to be almost everywhere in the wild. During a 10 day power outage several years ago (following which I bought a generator) I did constant water changes hauling local (mountain) river water. I'm in the mid Atlantic, US. Ended up with ich after some 25+ years without a single case-- including after winter power outages, one of which brought my tanks down into the 60s and stressed some of my fish, temporary cloudy eyes on a couple of them but no ich. The ich obviously came from the river water.
Reviewing my calculations, I believe I did the math wrong, and instead of 3, I need to add 18 gallons of sea water to bring up the salinity to 3.5ppt.
Since the ick has not yet seemed to spread, I'm not rushing the life cycle, and pouring in about 2 - 4 gallons of sea water per day.
