Guys, I have an emergency...

twentyleagues

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MFK Member
Apr 5, 2017
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Flint town!
Sorry to here you lost Rex. My thinking would be the other Synodontis, you put the two in the same container? My Synos get along as long as they dont try to occupy the same area say 1 piece of drift wood no matter how large. When one get displaced or decides to move there is fighting and its like "there is no where else to go I have to be right here". One takes a bit of a beating and eventually moves elsewhere and all is fine..... until its not again.
This is with my larger loaner synos. No issues with my petricola group, on the mated multis.
 

FINWIN

Alligator Gar
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Dec 21, 2018
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Sorry to here you lost Rex. My thinking would be the other Synodontis, you put the two in the same container? My Synos get along as long as they dont try to occupy the same area say 1 piece of drift wood no matter how large. When one get displaced or decides to move there is fighting and its like "there is no where else to go I have to be right here". One takes a bit of a beating and eventually moves elsewhere and all is fine..... until its not again.
This is with my larger loaner synos. No issues with my petricola group, on the mated multis.
My two synos got along great, actually. My cichlids not so much. They hated when Rex would press close or 'whisker' them. Tank size protected him along with many escape lanes and hide spots. BP Boss banged him around a lot but doesn't have the mouth to cause bite damage. I think it was the Oscar because weeks ago he nearly bit Rex in half when Rex kept using his barbels to 'taste' him. There's a pic in my Tank pics thread where Rex got away just in time. Ironically I planned to place him with the Severum Chip because I didn't trust him alone in the tub with Brick. Was a day too late. ?

So a full description of his wounds:

One eye white and damaged. Other eye full of blood on one side and white on the other. A huge bloody gut wound 1 inch in diameter. Skin and fins scrubbed down in areas. Tail bone section nearly bitten off, the tail at a bent angle. A large blood clot hanging from his anus (intestine?)


I may check out a smaller plec. Not a goldspot, tho...they seem to die for no reason.
 
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FINWIN

Alligator Gar
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Dec 21, 2018
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I've been using my wait time to clean the corner filters, add a bit more sand to the main tank, and arrange the plants. Small changes but I want to keep the big tank similar as possible to minimize territory issues. I'll show pics of the custom filters and how they were made.
 

Coryloach

Potamotrygon
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Apr 22, 2015
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So sorry to hear this. It is really stressful as I lived up through it not once but 3 times. My advise is don't panic. What will happen with the fish has already happened. It's easy for me to say it now though, while I am not in that situation at the moment.

I had my fish in totes for nearly 3 months the last time deliberating to get rid of all of them as I could not imagine setting up another glass tank and dreading the doom day again. In the end I could not part with them so I got into plastics :) I have a plastic pond now..

My advise is, feed extremely sparingly in the totes, do daily large water changes if you can and take your time setting up another tank. The fish will be fine, as long as your totes are not overstocked and you change the water. Get more totes if needs be and split the fish, providing you have cycled filters. I had all mine sitting in the middle of the sitting room....my family was not that enthusiastic about it :) Also, I am assuming you're using the filters that were in the main tank? I had to shorten my intakes/outlets on mine to make them work in the totes. I lost no fish but this is because "last time"(and I hope it stays that way..:) ) was the 3rd time in the space of a year or so, 3 tanks leaking, so I already owned empty plastic totes from the previous disasters, and I was able to split the fish as I liked, none tote was overstocked and each had one large cycled external filter. I had hundreds of shrimp that I could not manage to save and watched them die slowly...which kept me awake some nights afterwards....

Good luck and I hope you sort it out sooner for peace of mind.
 

FINWIN

Alligator Gar
MFK Member
Dec 21, 2018
5,084
8,113
188
Washington DC
So sorry to hear this. It is really stressful as I lived up through it not once but 3 times. My advise is don't panic. What will happen with the fish has already happened. It's easy for me to say it now though, while I am not in that situation at the moment.

I had my fish in totes for nearly 3 months the last time deliberating to get rid of all of them as I could not imagine setting up another glass tank and dreading the doom day again. In the end I could not part with them so I got into plastics :) I have a plastic pond now..

My advise is, feed extremely sparingly in the totes, do daily large water changes if you can and take your time setting up another tank. The fish will be fine, as long as your totes are not overstocked and you change the water. Get more totes if needs be and split the fish, providing you have cycled filters. I had all mine sitting in the middle of the sitting room....my family was not that enthusiastic about it :) Also, I am assuming you're using the filters that were in the main tank? I had to shorten my intakes/outlets on mine to make them work in the totes. I lost no fish but this is because "last time"(and I hope it stays that way..:) ) was the 3rd time in the space of a year or so, 3 tanks leaking, so I already owned empty plastic totes from the previous disasters, and I was able to split the fish as I liked, none tote was overstocked and each had one large cycled external filter. I had hundreds of shrimp that I could not manage to save and watched them die slowly...which kept me awake some nights afterwards....

Good luck and I hope you sort it out sooner for peace of mind.
Thanks, sounds like you've been through some stuff too...

Right now BOSS (BP) is in a large tote. CHIP (Sev) and CASH (Syno) share a medium tote. My rotten O Brick has the bathtub off the rec room. Seems like everyone wants to bite me now, I'm not popular. Even TANGO (BP) is getting in on the act, and he's not even in a tote!

Water changes in a tub are the best. BRICK keeps laying on the drain every time the water runs out. :screwy:

I'm just running air stones in the totes. The bio media rings and filter sponge pieces are submerged. Everyone gets fresh water every 2 days with SAFE. Excess pellets/poo are scooped up. With less room to swim in and explore everyone is getting chunky (with BOSS it's impossible to tell, lol) so, once a day meals.

The live pothos is either destroyed or rotted quickly due to lack of water current for oxygen while standing in containers. I have more ready to go in the main tank when its up and running. To help the new pothos acclimate more quickly submerged I've gotten larger air stone disks (5") and more powerful powerheads. The previous ones were 350gph. New ones are 570gph. I was able to rescue about 40% of the marimo balls...everyone had a good time shredding them into fiber.

Will include tote pics soon.
 
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