What are these plaques on Rosemariae Pike
- Thread starter Armatus Red
- Start date
The reason I asked about specific water parameters is this species (and many of the new pike cichlids), because they come from water from a very narrowly defined habitat.
They are not like fish that have adapted over generations to the non-specific waters in aquariums.
They often come from very soft, mineral poor, black water areas, seasonally inundated with tannins (that are anti-bacterial in nature), so they have not evolved immunity to the harder, mineral rich soup of waters and bacteria found in aquariums using tap water.
The plaques look bacterial or viral.
For these species, I would be using RO, or rain water mixed with no more than 50% tap water, and be adding tannins, with either soaked leaf litter, peat, or Rioboos tea to discourage pathogens
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I imported a bunch of these this year. I requested them not to ship me any with any black blotches. I was told it was viral, so far, all the ones I have shipped out are still alive unless nobody has updated me. I did have a few come in with black blotches but they are still alive as far as I know/aware.
I remember years ago some lugubris with the same issue being sold as crenicichla ''manchada''.
I talked with Oliver Lucanus and Vin Kutty about this on a pike group on Facebook. Multiple species are exported with these melanistic spots on them and both agreed that it is likely some type of disease and is usually fatal. The spots will continue to spread and the fish will usually waste away. Oliver (I think) also said it appeared to be infectious because they spread it to other pikes. I would not buy from anyone selling pikes with these markings.
