Sorry about not replying, a lot has been going on and I’ve been forgetting things.
Anyway,
Thank you for the explanations. And again, the integrity is much appreciated.
You know it and I now know it, this sounds like a hail-mary, rushed, not well planned mildly put, half-assed approach, which I too have been guilty of plenty of times in my rookie years and even nowadays I stupidly, as you rightfully put it, still do it once on a while.
Garbage in - garbage out.
It always pays to have a ready, stable, cycled, and proven tank first and getting a fish second. I've killed thousands of fish, so speaking from experience.
Anyhow, it sounds you are doing the right things now. I never use Prime or SeaChem for anything, so I will trust you are detoxifying the NH3 and NO2 correctly. As I said, I use Ammolock and table salt for these needs.
It'd be useless talking chaca to me as I've never kept them, only read the accounts of those who has. Not many of them active on MFK. A couple stands out, Sharptooth Bass and Ash-water, if I recall correctly. There are several others too.
The angel can go anytime. The sore on the lip I cannot fathom to be contagious, unless it is a secondary or tertiary consequential affliction after the initial physical injury or poison action. Even then, I'd rather lessen the bioload on the struggling 55 gal.
Yes it was a half assed plan at attempting to skip cycling. A few years back I had heard that someone had simply moved pre existing filters from an established tank to a brand new tank and had avoided cycling entirely. Me being impatient as I am found this to be worth gold and took it as fact because I believed that I could use this to skip cycling entirely. I now realize this is not the golden ticket I thought it was. It speeds it up but it doesn’t skip it.
I’m suprised you haven’t kept chaca chaca catfish before to be completly honest, I thought you had kept everything at one point or another. Also apparently kno4te has chaca chaca catfish too. I saw a post while searching for information where it said he had/has 3.
The angels went and currently the stock is the chaca chaca catfish, a few ghost shrimp that have managed to avoid being eaten (counted 4 left last night), and 14 zebra danios that were intended as feeders but he hasn’t touched them.
How long has the tank been set up?
It doesn't seem to be fully cycled yet with the presence of ammonia and nitrite, and adding another fish under those unstable conditions could have put it over the edge.
Also, did/do you have a quarantine tank.
Chaca's are almost always wild caught, so the possibility of it carrying a parasite, infective protozoa, or bacteria are quite high, and it could have infected the tank with a latent disease (originally not fatal in nature), but along with the toxic water parameters, and stress of shipping, and has now infected the entire tank.
Chaca's are also known to somehow lower pH in aquariums (may be the toxic effect spoken or earlier).
And that lowering of pH in those water conditions you posted can often be fatal, turning water acidic.
If it were me, I'd be changing 40-50% of the tanks water every day until the tank is stable.
The tank was set up about 2 weeks ago because I foolishly believed that moving an established filter from an established tank would instantly cycle the tank.
Yes I do, it is a 20 gallon that I would have to set up again if I were to use it. The way I set it up is that I move a filter over from my 55 gallon to it and move the filter from the 20 to the 55 for the next time I have to quarantine a fish :/. I realize now that it is not the best idea but I’m not sure how I would keep the quarantine tank cycled when I need to use it.
Ahh yes, I read up on that before and was worried about it but have been changing water daily or every other day.
Already doing so but more at 80% than 50%, I prefer bigger water changes.
Also, from my reading, I don't recall chacas taking pellets ever. I could be wrong. So offering it pellets at this point is too likely counterproductive. If worried, I'd offer it a feeder fish (as an exception as I don't like it) but at least it will tell you if it has an appetite.
Yeah I’ve figured out that pellets are more or less a lost cause by now from trying it personally and researching them.
I added 13 ghost shrimp and about 14 zebra danios for him to eat. I watched him for about 20 minutes and finally saw him eat a ghost shrimp after about 5 of them walking past/on him.
I last counted 4 ghost shrimp last night and all 14 zebra danios. I reckon that he favors the shrimp because they’re easier to catch and at the bottom more.
I intend to try to get him on tilapia soon.
