RTC ate and puked, now my tank is messed up. What else do I do?

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

mamapuff

Candiru
MFK Member
Mar 16, 2009
888
2
48
Austin, Texas
I fed my RTC last night and evidently he puked it all up last night as I woke up to the tank cloudy as all get out, with chunks of shrimp in a corner. I did a 50% wc, and the levels are as follows.

Ammonia .5
Nitrite .5
Nitrate .4
PH 7.2

What do I do? I thought about doing another wc when I get home from work tonight, but I wanted to get opinions first. He's never puked before, and I fed less last night than I normally do.

Ideas?
 
water change and make sure all food is out. Feed in a couple days but not alot and make sure pieces are cut small. try that for a few feedings. I've had big cats puke and I'm not sure why they did it. That is my opinion
 
My GT always eats more than he can handle. I have learnt to just give him a couple pellets at a time, wait 3-5 minutes and give 2 more. This way the Fish has time to chew and swallow the food. You know how it is if you take in too much food and you just want to spit it out? lol gross metaphor
 
perfect metaphor actually. :D Thanks guys. I am stumped still, since he normally eats more than that. I usually feed 4 shrimp, and I shred them up for him so that the other fish can steal any floaters that come their way so it ends up being about 3 total and a huge belly for Joker. I have to admit i was even thinking of giving him a little more since the Jack D. was stealing everything i dropped in last night and Joker kept swimming around looking for more, but thought I would just feed tonight again.

So it looks like another big WC tonight. Should I do another 50%? Or more?
 
Yep, keep those big water changes comming. Do at least 50% a day for a few days. I would not feed any fish in the tank for a couple of days either. IMHO.
 
Yep. They do that. My RTCxTSN has puked a couple times either because something spooked them or he stole food that was not theirs and ended up eating too much. Water changes are the only way to clean up that nastiness. Mine puked the other day in the middle of a water change (my gut told me to wait, but the nitrates were getting high.) So, instead of one water change, I'm now doing 3 50% water changes to clean up his mess... 300 gallons at a time. :irked:
 
Wet Whiskers;3756777; said:
Yep. They do that. My RTCxTSN has puked a couple times either because something spooked them or he stole food that was not theirs and ended up eating too much. Water changes are the only way to clean up that nastiness. Mine puked the other day in the middle of a water change (my gut told me to wait, but the nitrates were getting high.) So, instead of one water change, I'm now doing 3 50% water changes to clean up his mess... 300 gallons at a time. :irked:
Click to expand...


:eek:

OMG Jen, thats insane! I admit this is my first time to deal with this and was in panic mode this morning. Mainly because I had lost a fish in my other tank that looked to be in the same shape as this one. Cloudy water in two tanks (2 days after the water changes)... Yea I freaked. I fed shrimp to both tanks, but am now wondering if my lima puked too? I doubt it though, because a) no chunks were found this morning b) he was still chunky like he was last night.

I will be doing a second wc on both tonight. (yay me)
 
....
mamapuff;3757025; said:
I fed shrimp to both tanks, but am now wondering if my lima puked too? I doubt it though, because a) no chunks were found this morning b) he was still chunky like he was last night.

I will be doing a second wc on both tonight. (yay me)
Click to expand...

Just a thought as I've seen this before... eat good, puke big, "Hey!" eat good again! :naughty: yummy....:barf:

(Oh, and good news is that my filter handled the worst of it and got it all converted to nitrates, but it was a lot of nitrate. Yay! for lots of filtration.). :)
 
Got home and did my 2nd water change. Everyone is looking good. Thought it would be a good idea to clean the canister out, and I am glad I did. There was a lot of left overs in there from Joker (who is happily swimming around thinking more is going to be dropped in.) I have never seen him come to the top before... even when food is involved. The furthest he's come up is about half way.

How much should I feed him so he doesn't puke? He's now around 8 inches.
 
I always fed till their bellies looked like they would have a healthy pooch/roundness to them, but not until they were grossly distended. I try not to feed to the point that they are laying on the bottom of the tank hating themselves and beathing heavily (even though they would tell me they really didn't mind this ;) ). Basically, I just wanted to see a little buldge of their stomach, but have them still searching for more. As I have a very piggy TSN, this didn't always happen, and she would often end up with a protruding stomach that looked like she had swallowed a piece of round fruit and usually handled it just fine. Its my hybrid that's more of the puker anyways (probably puked 4 times in the year and a half that I've had him).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom