Exactly 1 year and 3 months ago, I purchased a Mikrogeophagus Ramirezi (German Blue Ram) from an aquatic store. At the time the fish looked as though it was around a year old which means that, at present, it's age could be 2 years and several months old. As some of you may know, the life span of a GBR is around 3 years so given that my GBR is demonstrating very different behaviour, I am quite concerned that he may be in the process of dieing naturally.
The behaviourally change has involved listlessness; he is sat on the substrate (still very colourful) and has a lack of appetite. Some days his mouth opens and closes very quickly and the gill rate can also be affected; these 2 symptoms are not constant though which I find very confusing!
I recently discovered that the nitrate level in my planted tank had snuck to over 80 ppm so to rule out depletion of oxygen in the fishs' blood (induced by nitrate toxicity) I did a 50% water change. This helped reduce the gill rate, however his behaviour is still as described above.
Before conducting the water change, I applied Kusuri Wormer Plus (contains Flubendazole), presuming there were gill flukes that are causing the increased respiration, and this seemed to have no effect. I normally associated rubbing/flicking with a gill fluke problem and he has NOT once done any of this, although I have witnessed some 'yawning'.
I have a dilemma on my hands at the moment; am I witnessing a natural death or has the high nitrate level caused opportunistic parasites to affect the functioning of the gills? I have had the planted tank for over a year now and, based on advice given on this very forum, cichlids such as Discus are supposedly able to withstand nitrate levels above 150 ppm in a planted tank environment so I'm very reluctant to blame the nitrates on the gill issue.
One thing I ought to mention is that I am currently dealing with a definite gill fluke issue in a separate tank which has it's own equipment (i.e. syphon, buckets etc) so the likelihood of the flukes contaminating the tank containing the GBR is very low.
Any input would definitely help me in terms of de-stressing!
Mark.
The behaviourally change has involved listlessness; he is sat on the substrate (still very colourful) and has a lack of appetite. Some days his mouth opens and closes very quickly and the gill rate can also be affected; these 2 symptoms are not constant though which I find very confusing!
I recently discovered that the nitrate level in my planted tank had snuck to over 80 ppm so to rule out depletion of oxygen in the fishs' blood (induced by nitrate toxicity) I did a 50% water change. This helped reduce the gill rate, however his behaviour is still as described above.
Before conducting the water change, I applied Kusuri Wormer Plus (contains Flubendazole), presuming there were gill flukes that are causing the increased respiration, and this seemed to have no effect. I normally associated rubbing/flicking with a gill fluke problem and he has NOT once done any of this, although I have witnessed some 'yawning'.
I have a dilemma on my hands at the moment; am I witnessing a natural death or has the high nitrate level caused opportunistic parasites to affect the functioning of the gills? I have had the planted tank for over a year now and, based on advice given on this very forum, cichlids such as Discus are supposedly able to withstand nitrate levels above 150 ppm in a planted tank environment so I'm very reluctant to blame the nitrates on the gill issue.
One thing I ought to mention is that I am currently dealing with a definite gill fluke issue in a separate tank which has it's own equipment (i.e. syphon, buckets etc) so the likelihood of the flukes contaminating the tank containing the GBR is very low.
Any input would definitely help me in terms of de-stressing!
Mark.
