Peacock Bass won't live

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hocysk8er

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I love the look of the peacock bass, but I can't keep one in my tank for more than 3 days before they die. I don't know what is wrong. So far I have about 20 other cichlids in my 125 gallon that are all around 2in. Each time I have bought a bass, I have bought other fish to put in there. 2 months ago I had one for about 2 weeks and it died. Then last week I bought a Blood parrot and a peacock bass, the Blood parrot lived and the peacock bass died, then I went and bought another peacock bass and a red devil and a catfish, the catfish and red devil lived, the peacock bass was dead.

What do these peacock bass need that they keep dying in my tank. All my nitrates and nitrites and kh and ph all tested fine. I feed my fish a combination of guppys, plankton, flakes, and chiclid pellets.

PLEASE HELP!!!
 
Peacock bass have a amazingly high metabolism when small and need to be fed at least 3 times a day to remain healthy and alive, they also will usually only eat fish so often suffer from malnutrition when only giving feeders from the store.

I feed my P bass 2 whole whitebait (silver sides) gut loaded with cichlid pellets 3 times a day.
 
i give my fish a good amount of foo 2 times a day, when I bought him, I also bought about 40 guppys for the 20 fish I have that eat live guppys.
 
Feeder guppies are not good enough, they have usually been badly kept and contain little to no nutrition. If you must feed your fish live feeders then you should buy them at least one week in advance and keep them in a seperate tank for a week where they can be fed on a good quality flake food to enhance their nutrition.

What are the 20 fish BTW, 20 fish sounds like quite a lot for a 125 gallon tank unless they are quite small.
 
the fish are all listed in my profile, the biggest fish they all average about 3-4 inches, except for the channel cats which are from 4-7 inches.
 
Bleeding heck!! To say that tank was overstocked would be a understatement, the number one reason for the death of your P bass is now clearly visable as over crowding. Are you aware that several of the cichlids you have will grow to over a foot each? Large NW Cichlids such as yours should be stocked at no more than one fish per 40 gallons of water which means your tank should house no more than 3 of the large Cichlids you have. I would suggest not buying anymore fish and trying to get hold of at least one more large tank to transfer half the fish into.
Channel catfish can grow to over 3 feet in length and are more suited to out door ponds than domestic aquariums.

For those that havent seen the fish in this tank here it is

125 gallon Magnum 350 and ehiem.
Fish: 7 tiger bars, 5 danios, 2 channel cats, 1 albino channel cat, 1 spotted cat, 1 bumble bee cat, 2 jack dempsey, 2 convicts, (40 1 month old baby convicts in another tank), 1 pink convict, 1 red devil, 1 blood parrot, 4 plecos, 1 green terror, 1 green texas, 1 firemoutn, 1 tiger oscar, 1 albino oscar, 1 jaguar, 1 salvani, 1 pink kissing guarami
 
My lord! I cant believe that those fish havent killed eachother yet! Or the danios, barbs, and gourami. And if a bumble bee cat is a bubmle bee gobbie that either!

Prehaps you should keep your favorite three cichlids, remove the other cichlids and large catfish, and get a community tank, say 55 gallons for the other peaceful species, the ones listed above, and i say 55 gallons because kissing gouramis should have a 50 gallon minimum tank.
 
:crazy: I'd agree with CFC here, the tank is well overstocked. Your best option is to upgrade in the near future or move some fish on. I am quiet surprised those Channel Catfish haven't eaten some of the smaller fish like the Danios and Barbs if they are 4-7" already.
 
The danios are crazy and a little bit smaller now than most of the cichlids. The tiger barbs and danios eat most of the guppies that I put in there. Everything actually gets along great, I got them all within a month, and each fish was no bigger than an inch in size each. I would not care if any of the fish started to fight, and turned my tank into a survival of the fitest. The only fish to get attached so far is the albino Oscar. Everything else is fine and healthy, with no battle wounds or anything. There are plenty of spots to hide in my tank.

But even so if my tank was over stocked, then all of my test would start to come back bad, or the other fish that I bought at the same time as the peacock basses would have died.

I was looking to find out if there is something the peacock bass is very fragile to or cannot withstand.
 
Small peacock bass need to be able to feed properly and in a tank with that many large aggressive feeders it is not going to be able to do that, your tank just isn't suitable for raising small fragile juvinile peacock bass.

Your tank is going to turn into a war zone as soon as those fish start to grow and need bigger territories, i wouldnt be suprised if in 6 months the cichlids have thinned themselves down to just the jag, salvini and green terror which are the most aggressive of the fish you have. :(
 
waitwaitwait...

The tiger barbs and danios eat most of the guppies that I put in there.

the only possible way that 1" tiger barbs and danios can eat guppies is if you're feeding guppy fry (quarter-inch or less).

feeder guppy fry are probably even less nutrious than fully-grown guppy feeders.
 
dammitttt... why are there so many people that have overstocked tanks and get yelled at :(

sorry bud, ur gonna have to lose sum of them fish...

at least get rid of the community fish and channel cats :blink:
 
I would not care if any of the fish started to fight, and turned my tank into a survival of the fitest. The only fish to get attached so far is the albino Oscar. Everything else is fine and healthy, with no battle wounds or anything. There are plenty of spots to hide in my tank.

What a terrible philosiphy! Didn't anyone at your lfs say anything as they saw you come in and buy loads and loads of fish? And I thought my tank was overstocked...
:eek:
 
That philosophy isn't very kind on your fish. A lot of those fish are expensive...would you really want to waste them? Even if they were cheap fish, that has to violate some sort of animal cruelty law.
 
I have had 5-6 different cichlids in a 55 gallon at one time, and as long as I added them all at about the same time and size they have been fine. So everything shoudl be close to fine here in the 120.

I was amazed to see the barbs and danios eat the feeder guppies myslef. They will get them half in their mouth and swim around the half the guppy hanging out of their mouth. The tiger barbs are probably the most agressive thing in the the tank( as a school) except for the jag. The barbs group up and go after my arm when I clean out the tank.

Thanks for saying that the peacock bass is "a small fragile juvinile peacock bass" that is what I was looking to find out, if the peacock bass is fragile when small.

Thanks for all the help, I won't be adding anymore fish, and I will keep everyone update on how my fish are doing. As of today they are all very happy and energetic.

The danios really help keep the peace, if anyone is having trouble with their fish fighting, try adding some Giant danios, they are cheap and you have nothing to lose.
 

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