Covict Rubbing Against Plants And Gravel (pictures Added)

[Eviltoon]

Fish Symptoms: Yellow Convict cichlid put into new aquarium yesterday and today I noticed it rubbing its right side against gravel and plant leaves. It was not doing this yesterday. No sign of white spots or any fungus. Fish appears to be healthy (it is the dominant fish in tank & very aggressive). Back fin is not droopy at all...wondering if this is normal behaviour or is it signaling something troublesome

Volume and Frequency of water changes: All new, cycled over 10 days before adding fish...readings are all fine

Chemical Additives or Media in your tank: Nothing other than stress coat added prior to putting in fish

Tank inhabitants: 2 jack Dempseys, one plocostamus, one blue amazon cichlid and one yellow convict (all quite small except plocky)

Recent additions to your tank (living or decoration): All new material, cycled tank with natural plants, coral rock and numerous aquarium store bought plastic rock/caves

Size of tank: 55 gals

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

How did you go about cycling the tank and what stats did you test the water for (ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, ph etc) and what results did you get back exactly? You say the tank was only cycled for 10days before adding fish- how long has the tank been set up for now? How large/long are the fish roughly too?
The parasite that causes whitespot goes through numerous life cycles, not all of which cause symptoms on the fish which are visible to the naked eye, so its too early to rule out whitespot yet. Another possibility is flukes on the fish or irritants in the water etc- this thread may of some interest to you in the link below;

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showto...p;#entry1899690


Need more info on your situation before we can really get near to accurately figuring out whats up with the fish .

 

[Eviltoon]

Thanks for the reply 'Tokis-Phoenix',

The test kit I used is called Api 5 in 1 test strips
GH General hardness was between 60 & 120 ppm
KH Carbonate Hardness was a little low at 80 ppm
Ph was at 6.8
Nitrate levels were low at .5 for No2 and 20 ppm for NO3

The tank: I took quite a lot (20 gals) of established good water from my Dempsey tank and put it in the new tank with a new Fluval filter topping it up with filtered tap water and let it run for 10 days with just a couple of goldfish in it (goldfish were clean as I had them for ages). I added some water conditioner too as Vancouver tends to have high chlorine, and our pipes seem to give off a good amount of copper. My filter removes large amount of unwanted components.

The cichlids were just new and store bought, healthy in their tank and the Dempseys were good here at home in their smaller tank before I put the four in together. Each of the 4 cichlids are about 1.5-2 inches long...with the plocky being about 6". Knowing that the Hardess readings are not ideal for the Cichlids I have put quite a large coral stone in the tank...I understand this will help with the Ph too. Maybe it hasn't had time to raise the #'s yet. The Dempsey's are showing no sign of aggitation...only the new Amazons

This is the second day now and there is no sign of whitespot and they don't seem to be rubbing as much as yesterday.

Let me know if you need more info...thanks

How did you go about cycling the tank and what stats did you test the water for (ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, ph etc) and what results did you get back exactly? You say the tank was only cycled for 10days before adding fish- how long has the tank been set up for now? How large/long are the fish roughly too?
The parasite that causes whitespot goes through numerous life cycles, not all of which cause symptoms on the fish which are visible to the naked eye, so its too early to rule out whitespot yet. Another possibility is flukes on the fish or irritants in the water etc- this thread may of some interest to you in the link below;

<a href="http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showto...p;#entry1899690" target="_blank">http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showto...p;#entry1899690</a>


Need more info on your situation before we can really get near to accurately figuring out whats up with the fish .

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Tank water actually contains very little of the important nitrifying bacteria because the bacteria primarily lives on surfaces in the tank, even though your nitrites are very low at 0.5, the fact there is a trace of them could mean the tank is cycling- the best thing to do would be to squeeze some of the gunk out of the filter from your established tank into the filter sponge of your new tank, as this will contain a lot more of the essential bacteria you need to cycle the tank .

It can take a while for whitespot to show the classic white spot symptoms, up to 2+ weeks in some cases, however if the fish don't have whitespot but have flukes instead you don't really want to be not treating them for anything just waiting for any potential whitespot to show symptoms, so...A lot of fish carry body flukes (which are not visible to the naked eye) however most fish can cope with them, its usually when the fish are exposed to some stressful situation like being moved from one tank like a pet shop tank, to a new tank like a private owners tank, that the flukes take advantage of the fishes stress and reproduce out of control on the fish, causing the fish a great deal of distress. Fish flicking/rubbing themselves against objects, rapid/labored breathing, hanging around the surface or bottom of the tank lots etc are all symptoms flukes can make fish display. If the fish have red or inflamed looking gills as well then it could mean the fish have gill flukes too.

Because you have a pleco its not advisable to treat the tank with salt (since pleco's don't tolerate salt that well), IMHO the best course of action would be to treat the tank with an anti external parasite med (if you live in the UK, "anti velvet and slime" by Interpet is a med that treats a range of external parasites including flukes) .

 

[Eviltoon]

Thanks again for your reply Tokis-Phoenix. I am looking for redness and imflamation around the gills, and lethargy...so far none are showing signs of either. Still no white spots!

I will take your advice and add some of the material from the old filter into the new one...thanks too about the salt warning. You just save the pleco some discomfort as I was thinking doing just that. What I did do is buy some PH raise solution as I felt the ph was too low and thought this might be what is causing irritation. I live in Vancouver BC and we have notoriously soft water with low PH. I supposes treating for external parasites cannot harm the fish, so I will get some medication soon.

 

[Eviltoon]

Continuing observations...
Still no whitespot...and it's been five days now.
But I am including pics (not easy to take pics of moving fish ). They are a tad blurry, but I have red circled a fairly large white spot on the underside fin. It is way too big for me to think it is ich...and I have also noticed this on the other Amazon that I added to the tank. He has a smaller spot, but it is in the same place. There is also a whitish, sort of silver around the gills...it isn't powedery at all it is a very solid colour and I intially thought it was a natural marking as it is identical on either side (in fact it may well be...but now I am getting paranoid). I may also be noticing a slight white colour along the torso, that may or may not be natural.

This all sort of looks like a fungus of some kind...but I have had no experience with this before. Anyone recognize these symptoms. Hoping the images tell a tale.

Thanks

 

[Eviltoon]

Well I thought it would be nice to update this thread as it has a happy ending.

My new Cichlids are swimming around enjoying their new home. I think I got mores stressed than they did looking back on it. They were able to stop the rubbing less than a day after I raised the water hardness and PH levels. Obviously if this had not been done the skin irritation from the inadequate water conditions would eventually have created sore spots and lessions opening the door for bacteria problems, fungus and stress related concerns too.

But the little buggers are very happy now, swimming around and harrassing each other to bits.

Oh and the white spot on the fin turns out to be a sex or mating indicator...the things I learn.

Thanks Tokis-Phoenix for you advice...nice when the simple fix is the right one.