Red Bellied Pacu - Sick AGAIN? Or just a drama queen?

[turningitred]

So I'll spare you the long story of how we got to where we are, but if you're interested it's on my profile. If for any reason you're going to suggest that we shouldn't have ever gotten a Pacu, please read my profile.. But moving on. Ever since we acquired this guy we've had issue after issue. Some of these were our fault and our own ignorance, other times it's been a bit of a mystery for us to figure out, but this one is really wierd.

This morning we woke up and turned on the lights for the 120 Gallon tank that Pacu is in and noticed instantly that he had just about lost all of his color overnight. Other than the black on his fins, his face and body were ghostly white, kinda looked albino for a minute. He also seemed to be a bit bloated? Anyway, recently we had added a few fish to his tank and a few days after doing so, he developed small white spots on his body. They looked a little like ich, but they seemed to stick out just a tiny bit, kind of like a pimple. We've treated many fish in the last few months, and didn't want to put him through the stress of moving him back to the QT yet again, so the other day, we raised the water temp and added aquarium salt (1tsp per 10 gal). The spots seemed to clear up on one side, only to return the next day on the other side. Today there are no spots, but the whole ghosty thing this morning really had us concerned. Not long after we first saw him this morning, his coloring had pretty much all returned to normal, although he still has that bloated look. Any ideas on what this could be? I tested the water right away and saw there was no ammonia, a slight increase in nitrites, and of course he tends to run high on nitrates no matter how many water changes we do. I'll be doing a 30% water change today, but any thoughts that could shed some light on this would be amazing!

 

[pacu mom]

There should be no nitrite in your water. Change out enough water to remove all nitrites and get the nitrates under 20ppm. I'm convinced that high nitrates are responsible for many pacu dying suddenly at around two years of age. My pacu turn very pale when they're sleeping and regain their dark color after they wake up. Ihope you're quaranteening all new fish before putting them in with your pacu. BTW, my pacu are very sensitive to nitrites and would gasp if there was nitrites in their water. Upon removal of nitrites, they would stop gasping. I think you need to change out more than 30%. We routinely used to do two 60% changes back to back on our 300 gal tank. Now we can only do 50% changes as our fish are too big and swim on their sides when half the water is removed.

 

[turningitred]

Pacu Mom, thanks for your insight! The nitrates typically stay between 40-80ppm no matter what I do to keep them down (30 gallon sump with fuge and LOTS of plants, canister filter, and weekly water changes). Typically the nitrites are at 0ppm. Only in the last day or so it went up to about 1ppm. I don't know if this has anything to do with the salt? The Pacu we have seems to be very emotional, and anything over 30% typically makes him start laying on his side as he is a relatively big fish (aprox 12 inches) and is about 8 years old from what we were told. To put you at ease, we are definitely QTing anything before it goes into the tank, including the ghost shrimp I added to the sump fuge. It's good to know that his color changing nightly is a normal thing, although I have to say it's strange that we've never seen him do that before? Only since we added the aquarium salt a couple of days ago. Have you found any other ways aside from massive water changes to help control nitrates?

 

[pacu mom]

Check your tap water for nitrates. I'm pretty sure your nitrate level has more to do with your stocking level, though. Our pacu were in a 55 gallon tank with four large oscars and two 12" pleco when we acquired the tank and fish. Once we understood the nitrogen cycle, we changed out about 60 gallons a day from that 55 gallon tank, 15 gallons at a time. If all you can change out is 30%, you may have to do 2 or 3 or more WCs a week to get your nitrates lower. That's the beauty of a larger, lightly stocked tank--the nitrates are diluted and therefore requiring a lower % WC.

If your pacu is 8 years old and only 12", then he is definitely stunted. He should be at least double that. For the health of your pacu, you need to keep nitrates much lower.

 

[turningitred]

Thank you again! We will definitely continue to work on lowering the nitrate levels for him. We've only had him for a few months, are you saying that he's stunted and will not continue to grow much bigger, or that his growing slowed dramatically from lack of proper care? We already noticed that he is ten times healthier than when we got him. Do you think he will grow more with better care? Also, I'm still curious, do you think the nightly color changes may have started happening after adding the aquarium salt? We only added it for the sake of disease treatment, but I'm wondering if we should have added it in the first place? Again, I really appreciate all of your kind advice!

 

[pacu mom]

Thank you again! We will definitely continue to work on lowering the nitrate levels for him. We've only had him for a few months, are you saying that he's stunted and will not continue to grow much bigger, or that his growing slowed dramatically from lack of proper care? We already noticed that he is ten times healthier than when we got him. Do you think he will grow more with better care? Also, I'm still curious, do you think the nightly color changes may have started happening after adding the aquarium salt? We only added it for the sake of disease treatment, but I'm wondering if we should have added it in the first place? Again, I really appreciate all of your kind advice!

He will continue to grow. Here's an old pic, probably 6 years ago. Got a new camera, and turned on the lights to take their picture. You can see how pale they were when the lights were turned on. BW, they are much bigger now 24+"