Just Received my First GATF!

[Reedmaster16]

Pics are terrible I know but I wanted to give a quick update and see if anyone had any treatment suggestions for Hannibal's left eye. There are small spots that appear to be in the eye not on the surface. After doing a large amount of research over the past couple weeks my best guess is it may be some type of Eye Fluke or gram negative bacterial infection. I ran two treatments of API General Cure with the last dosage being administered 10 days ago. Metronidazole and Praziquantel are the two chemicals in general cure.

The eye appeared to improve a tiny bit during the treatment but a few days ago it seemed to be getting slightly more cloudy. He is incredibly healthy and other than his eyesight in the left eye deteriorating a little bit he does not have any other issues.

Water parameters are less than 10ppm nitrate 0 nitrite 0 ammonia 0 chlorine ph 7.4 temperature 81 F

Any suggestions or helpful advice are always welcome and appreciated.

Thanks
Reed

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[lemarj]

Damn , man I'm sorry to see Hannibel having that eye situation hopefully it gets better!

 

[Reedmaster16]

Damn , man I'm sorry to see Hannibel having that eye situation hopefully it gets better!

Thanks bro its looking a little better and he appears very healthy otherwise. I want him to get one more big feeding session in and I may try another run of praziquantel at a slightly higher dose. I just dont want to weaken or damage him from the meds too much.

If anyone has additional treatment advice or suggestions Id appreciate it

 

[Reedmaster16]

Hannibal made it through a run of prazipro last week without any problems at all. His left eye still has the visible white layer in it but it appears a bit clearer. The big change has been his mood. He is flying all over the tank like he use to and looks healthier than he has ever been. He finally managed to catch the last cichlid that kept evading him for weeks the other day and his tail continues to deepen in color and grow.

Ive been working on the tank quite a bit making some moves this week with upgrades. I have added an additional Koralia Mag 8 so there are 2 of them on one end of the tank pushing quite a bit of water (around 6500-7000gph between the two i think). I also purchased a Marineland Mag 350 canister (mechanical) and hooked a TMC Vecton 600 25w UV sterilizer on the return. The video is just before I set it all up and the water after running it for about 48 hours is so so so so much clearer haha. It was very clear before but the difference is incredible.

He has a few new tankmate buddies as well I moved in. An Indo Pacific Tarpon (appears to be the perfect tankmate so far), and my 9" Raph Vulp Payara who was getting too big for his tank.

I am really trying to get him and the Brevis onto food sticks but no luck yet. The tarpon, silver dollars, Raph, all love them and devour close to 100 a day between the group. I hope Hannibal follows their lead and eats the pellets before he gets too hungry and starts zeroing in on tankmates. Hes taken frozen silversides previously but they are difficult to feed to him in the tank due to the current blowing them into the filter right away.

Everythings looking great though.

Ill take some better pics with my tablet later but here is a vid I took on my phone a few days ago.

-Reed

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[Tim Wheatley]

Crazy how quickly my GATF has been growing and filling out, he is already as large as my biggest red tail barracuda at around 6.5 inches. I wanted to know if anyone had a recommendation on a peaceful non territorial dither fish I could add to calm and reduce future aggression.
Thanks
Reed

Now it's been a while, do you have any suggestions? For the current size of mine I was even thinking Giant Danios...? They'd be fast enough to avoid being eaten, but I also don't want him being skittish due to the Danios! I hate having another huge tank looking so empty... lol

Mine is skittish, but has absolutely no problem eating while I'm watching like yours seemed to... Slightly worrying... 4 inches long and already confident...

Have you ever tried switching to pellets? I would very much like to switch to Carni sticks... But feeding live isn't an issue, I have to feed my gar anyway (in another tank) and he hasn't been switched yet.

 

[Reedmaster16]

Now it's been a while, do you have any suggestions? For the current size of mine I was even thinking Giant Danios...? They'd be fast enough to avoid being eaten, but I also don't want him being skittish due to the Danios! I hate having another huge tank looking so empty... lol

Mine is skittish, but has absolutely no problem eating while I'm watching like yours seemed to... Slightly worrying... 4 inches long and already confident...

Have you ever tried switching to pellets? I would very much like to switch to Carni sticks... But feeding live isn't an issue, I have to feed my gar anyway (in another tank) and he hasn't been switched yet.

Silver dollars have been the best dither ive had. Although I lost two of the smaller ones a couple months ago from the Goliath biting their back half off. The one large silver dollar has been with the goliath for almost his entire life.

In my opinion Danios would become food quickly.

I myself have been trying to get the goliath on food sticks for 2 weeks now with no luck. He reluctantly eats tilapia if the power head pushes the piece right in front of his face. I lost my 9" Raph. Vulp. Payara on Saturday to the goliath from trying to get him on food sticks over the past week. He had not eaten all week and seemed he took his frustration out on the poor payara who went from a healthy 9" to about 4" after the goliath took his back half off.

Yesterday he downed a few pieces of tilapia but as of right now no luck on the pellets still.

Everyone else in the tank (tarpon, silver dollars, hujeta barracuda) all love the food sticks but the two tigers are very reluctant to eat them thus far.

 

[Reedmaster16]

So last night I did a large water change to make sure any remaining medication is removed.

I also cleaned the sponges in a bucket of tank water and put new filter floss in one of my three fx5's.

An hour or so later I noticed the fish behaving strangely and not being as active as they normally are. I immediately tested the water and somehow nitrites and nitrates were present. I added what stability I had left, more prime and salt in an attempt to detoxify the nitrites. I cant believe the water change and media rinse is causing a mini cycle.

I thought the bio from the two other fx5s and mag 350 would have been more than sufficient to handle my cleaning of the one fx5 and water change but evidently I was wrong. I guess I underestimated the stabilizing biological effect of substrate in a tank.

Im so pissed at myself right now for such a dumbass mistake. I really hope everyone makes it through ok. I am going to do a small water change 15-20% later today to try and reduce the nitrites a bit and I am picking up more stability on my way home from work to use as well.

Any other recommendations or tips are greatly appreciated.

-Reed

 

[Tim Wheatley]

Do you have any other tanks? I was able to recover from a mini-cycle recently by doing a water swap.

I normally change 50% of the water in every tank, every week.

What I did was emptied 50% out of the tank in the mini cycle and slowly transferred 25% from another tank (at acclimation speed, not too fast). Only 25% was fresh water. I did this every 2-3 days for a week or so. The tank being transferred from obviously was getting 25% fresh each time I did this.

 

[Tim Wheatley]

Silver dollars have been the best dither ive had. Although I lost two of the smaller ones a couple months ago from the Goliath biting their back half off. The one large silver dollar has been with the goliath for almost his entire life.

In my opinion Danios would become food quickly.

I myself have been trying to get the goliath on food sticks for 2 weeks now with no luck. He reluctantly eats tilapia if the power head pushes the piece right in front of his face. I lost my 9" Raph. Vulp. Payara on Saturday to the goliath from trying to get him on food sticks over the past week. He had not eaten all week and seemed he took his frustration out on the poor payara who went from a healthy 9" to about 4" after the goliath took his back half off.

Yesterday he downed a few pieces of tilapia but as of right now no luck on the pellets still.

Everyone else in the tank (tarpon, silver dollars, hujeta barracuda) all love the food sticks but the two tigers are very reluctant to eat them thus far.

I may return mine. It was either him or Red Bellies... I'm pleased I gave him a shot but maybe someone else can do better with him. At the moment I am really concerned I'm going to find him on the floor... He doesn't swim into the glass very much, but seems to have an escape response (from me) which includes leaping out of the water and bouncing off the top glass... He has reacted to bloodworms, but didn't eat any, isn't interested in pellets or shrimp, so only eats feeders so far. I was hoping (going on what I had read) that he'd be a little easier to transfer. My Florida Gar (separate tank) JUST started eating prepared food.

 

[Reedmaster16]

Do you have any other tanks? I was able to recover from a mini-cycle recently by doing a water swap.

I normally change 50% of the water in every tank, every week.

What I did was emptied 50% out of the tank in the mini cycle and slowly transferred 25% from another tank (at acclimation speed, not too fast). Only 25% was fresh water. I did this every 2-3 days for a week or so. The tank being transferred from obviously was getting 25% fresh each time I did this.

Thanks alot for the suggestion. Yea thats a good idea I have a few other tanks I can use water from. Did the fish make it through alright?

I may return mine. It was either him or Red Bellies... I'm pleased I gave him a shot but maybe someone else can do better with him. At the moment I am really concerned I'm going to find him on the floor... He doesn't swim into the glass very much, but seems to have an escape response (from me) which includes leaping out of the water and bouncing off the top glass... He has reacted to bloodworms, but didn't eat any, isn't interested in pellets or shrimp, so only eats feeders so far. I was hoping (going on what I had read) that he'd be a little easier to transfer. My Florida Gar (separate tank) JUST started eating prepared food.

Yea they are by no means easy to keep. One of my juvenile 4" goliaths is now eating bloodworms and tiny pieces of tilapia. He started off by just inspecting the bloodworms and after about a week he started to devour them. Two days ago I started the tilapia and he seems to really enjoy it. One thing is that he wont really eat the food once its hit the bottom so the key is to get him to notice it as it is falling in the water.