Steatocranus tinanti bloat?

[the_deeb]

I picked up a group of these awesome little fish at the convention and they seemed to be doing well for a month or so but then they all went downhill. Over the course of a couple of weeks they became gradually became shy, listless, then stopped eating and died. I lost my last one today. All other tank mates are fine and no obvious issues with water quality.

I really like these guys and would like to get another group but I'd like to figure out what went wrong so I don't lose any more. I have a couple of theories:

I first noticed them become more shy when I increased did a round of malachite green treatment for a mild ich outbreak. However, they continued to get sicker after the treatment was over and I had done several large water changes so I don't if that's it.

My other idea is that it might be diet. I generally fed them cichlids pellets that I got from the vendor I purchased them from, but I also periodically feed bloodworms and mysis shrimp. These guys LOVE mysis shrimp and go absolutely crazy for the stuff gorging themselves. But I'm wondering if that might lead to an issue like bloat, like with tropheus. The reason I suspect this is that they died in order, starting with the largest and most aggressive eater and ending with the smallest and shyest eater, and as they started getting sicker I was feeding mysis more often to try to get them to eat.

Has anyone else who keeps these guys noticed anything like this?

 

[Kaosu]

Few questions for you

What setup are they in?

Temp?

filtration?

did you ever do a water test while they were sick?

size of tank?

other tank mates?

Mine seemed to never have a problem with over eating..they ate tons and would get full bellies but I never had an issue with it.
What is the brand of pellets you were feeding?

Mine at everything from live night crawlers,black worms, pellets, and everything frozen I placed in the tank.

 

[the_deeb]

They were in my 150g riparium tank

Temp is generally around 79 and was raised to 83 for the period of ich treatment

Filtration is a 40g sump with 200 micron sock, 50 micron filter pad and 8" of 10ppi porret foam (plus all the riparium plants). The outflow on the sump return provides ~10X turnover/hr and generates a fair amount of current and surface agitation.

I did one water test just before the last one died and it looked fine - ammonia - 0ppm, nitrite - 0ppm, nitrate - 30ppm (I actually add potassium nitrate as part of my plant fertilizer mix)

Other tank mates include synodontis flavitaneus, mystery hybrid syno, archer fish, SAE and an african arrowana who was living in the sump at the time. No obvious aggression from any of the tankmates.

The whole thing is kind of a mystery to me. Maybe I just got unlucky with a bad batch of fish. It's good to hear that you had no problems feeding yours - makes me think it's worth giving them another try.

 

[Kaosu]

hmm..Strange nothing i see could really of caused the problem.

How long did you have them before they started dieing?


My dominate male died after having him for 2 years, he spawned...became lethargic slowly over about 4 days and just died no bloat.

I also lost a few when dosing the tank with excel to kill bba, and again when the power head was turned off and the temps skyrocketed over the summer.

 

[the_deeb]

Hmm.. interesting to hear about the excel. How sure are you that that's what caused it?

I guess I had mine for about a month before they started dying. It just occurred to me that the period where they started dying off may also have coincided with when I started dosing my tank with ferts for the plants. It's just s standard macro/micro mix for EI dosing so nothing that I would expect should cause any issues.

The behavior you describe with your male is pretty much what happened with mine (minus the spawning). Became lethargic and shy and then died. They didn't actually look bloated; I just wondered if it might be some issue related to too much protein in the diet like what happens with bloat in other fish.

I actually got a response on another forum where someone else also lost their group in the same way with all of them dying off one by one without any obvious reason why. Seems like there may be something that these guys are sensitive to that we don't really understand.

 

[Kaosu]

I am sorry I never got back to you!!!!!

Our baby came early and we have been super busy...was looking threw my messages and noticed this still.

I knew it was the excel cuz I lost them almost immediately after dosing, I did a large water change, dosed and turned lights off. That morning 2 were dead and one was dieing, a large water change later every one seemed to be doing fine. I dosed the tank more than was needed in frustration to get the bba off my anubias.

Hope this helped and is not way way to late.