Lost my FM last night :(

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
E

EastBay

Gambusia
MFK Member
Jun 10, 2010
346
1
16
SF East Bay
Well, my FM died during the night. I knew he was on thin ice after watching it last evening, not even enough fight to swim against the power head current.

Probably for the best. Now I don't have to worry about it anymore. I had it for only a week, but something wasn't right from the beginning. He looked fine in the tank at the LFS, but once I got it home, something was off.

It looked like it was suffering from ammonia poisoning -- rapid gill movement, gasping mouth -- even though the rest of the livestock were fine. All water tests proved normal.

It didn't eat anything, from what I saw, for a week. And in it's weakened state, made it easier to be picked on by the JD and Tex -- mostly the JD.

I guess this particular "experiment" didn't work out.

Does anyone think a FM can work with a JD, Tex and Sev? Just wondering if I should get another FM for the system.
 
It depends on how big your tank is.

Also, did you acclimate him well? A rapid change in pH can cause symptoms that mimic those of ammonia toxicity. That may be why he was the only one affected in your well-established tank. Once the others started picking on him, the stress probably worsened his problem.
 
EastBay;4277779; said:
Does anyone think a FM can work with a JD, Tex and Sev? Just wondering if I should get another FM for the system.
Click to expand...

thats probably one of the most common setups in fish keeping and one of the easiest to keep, provided your tank is big enough. Id say they could live happily in a 125 minimum, full grown. Anything smaller will end up with problems in the long run if they are all small right now.
 
Natalie;4277824; said:
It depends on how big your tank is.

Also, did you acclimate him well? A rapid change in pH can cause symptoms that mimic those of ammonia toxicity. That may be why he was the only one affected in your well-established tank. Once the others started picking on him, the stress probably worsened his problem.
Click to expand...

This is a mistake a lot of people make. I was told to do a water acclimation as well as a temperature acclimation before I even got any of my Cichlids. To be fair the the OP, it's an easy one to make.

Test the pH in the bag and in your tank, if they're different, remove water from the bag and add water from the tank. I usually do it 5-6 times then check the pH in the bag again, when it's the same I let it sit for 5-10 minutes then release. I usually wait about 6-10 minutes between removing and adding as well.
 
I think I acclimated the fish well. Floated for 20 minutes and then added a cup of water every 5-10 minutes from the tank to the bag. When the bag got filled, I dumped out most of the water and continued to acclimate with water from tank. Having had a saltwater setup for six year previously, I'm pretty well versed in the acclimation process.

Spent an hour on the acclimation -- 20 minutes floating and 40 minutes of adding tank water to the bag. I've done the same thing with dozens of fish and have never lost one before from poor acclimation.

The tank is a 90g, 5-footer. This was a new setup and these were the initial inhabitants, but I cycled the tank for month, using fish food and squeezing an old media pad into the tank several times to start the cycle, doing frequent water tests. Once Ammonia and Trite went to zero, and the Trates were less than 20, added the four fish, all between 2-4 inches. The FM was actually the biggest one because I was hoping it would better be able to defend itself against the others.

The FM was the only one display any kind of symptoms. The other three were fine and were eating the very first evening I had them. The FM, however, just never ate. Not only did it seem like Am toxicity, it also appeared it had a hard time closing its mouth, contributing to the look of "gasping." Has anyone ever heard of a fish dislocating its jaw and not being able to close it's mouth? I don't know when it could have happened, however, because it was "Gasping" from the moment I put it in the tank. Didn't even have time to get in a fight at that point. I was able to look inside and didn't see anything lodged in there.

I was unable to do any kind of autopsy because my daughter was too eager to net it out and flush it!

I just wonder: This particular FM was a trade in at the LFS. The LFS had had it for about 3 weeks before I bought it. I wonder if three different tank conditions in less than a month was just too stressful for it? Even though it spent months in the former owner's tank and three weeks at the LFS?
 
EastBay;4278852; said:
I just wonder: This particular FM was a trade in at the LFS. The LFS had had it for about 3 weeks before I bought it. I wonder if three different tank conditions in less than a month was just too stressful for it? Even though it spent months in the former owner's tank and three weeks at the LFS?
Click to expand...

It sounds like you know your stuff and thought of everything possible to save him. You bring up an interesting thought with your last paragraph, and switching environments several times may very well have stressed him. Who knows what the former owner's tank conditions were? There may have been 200 ppm nitrates in there, and he was so used to poor conditions that he was shocked when he went into a different tank. Who knows, that's just speculation on my part.

I have seen cichlid's "jaws" get locked in the open position, usually from sparring with another fish or their own reflection in the glass. I can't think why that would have spontaneously occurred as soon as he went into the tank.

I think it'd be ok to add another FM, maybe just check your water parameters one last time before doing so?
 
Thanks Natalie. Yeah, I've been in the hobby basically my whole life, but I've been really serious about it the last 10 years or so. And yet I'm learning stuff all the time!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom