Hi there. I'm super paranoid because I've been trying to get a nice centerpiece fish for my 29g and have had nothing but bad luck. The first fish that I tried was a gold ram that never made it out of quarantine. He refused to eat and despite my best efforts to treat him, he eventually succumbed.
Anyway I found some keyhole cichlids at a petstore about an hour and a half from my home so I bought 2(about 1" long)and brought them home and set them up in a 20g quarantine tank with cycled media from my established tank. My tap water has some ammonia so I double dose with prime and after a couple of days the water stats were down to perfect. They've been in the tank for 6 days and have been fine but this morning one was bottom sitting and then they both spit out their flake food breakfast that they've been eating just fine.
I tested their water and the params were 0 ammonia/0 nitrite/20ish nitrate and ph 8.4 which is common here and what I keep all of my fish in - kh and gh are both high. These are as perfect as I can get with ammonia and nitrate readings straight out of the tap. So anyway I watched them for a while and noticed some flicking and rubbing on the bottom of the tank. They also go back and forth between their normal colors to dark and mottled like when they're stressed or sleeping. They might be clamped. They aren't holding their dorsal fins all the way up, but this is what they look like in the pictures that I've seen.
I fed them bloodworms which they did eat just fine. There are no visible signs of parasites or anything right now. I did notice a bit of a stringy poo but it was probably just the start of one because when I checked again it was gone and there were healthy-looking poos on the bottom. This might be tmi but I'm trying to be thorough and I really don't want to lose these guys. I salted the tank up to .3% as a precaution which I usually do with all of my new arrivals. I couldn't find anything about them being sensitive to salt, but it's possible that it might be what's irritating them. What do you guys think? I have a lot more experience with goldfish and identifying diseases on them, but I'm really inexperienced with cichlids and haven't had any luck except with my brackish ones. Thanks!
-Missy
Anyway I found some keyhole cichlids at a petstore about an hour and a half from my home so I bought 2(about 1" long)and brought them home and set them up in a 20g quarantine tank with cycled media from my established tank. My tap water has some ammonia so I double dose with prime and after a couple of days the water stats were down to perfect. They've been in the tank for 6 days and have been fine but this morning one was bottom sitting and then they both spit out their flake food breakfast that they've been eating just fine.
I tested their water and the params were 0 ammonia/0 nitrite/20ish nitrate and ph 8.4 which is common here and what I keep all of my fish in - kh and gh are both high. These are as perfect as I can get with ammonia and nitrate readings straight out of the tap. So anyway I watched them for a while and noticed some flicking and rubbing on the bottom of the tank. They also go back and forth between their normal colors to dark and mottled like when they're stressed or sleeping. They might be clamped. They aren't holding their dorsal fins all the way up, but this is what they look like in the pictures that I've seen.
I fed them bloodworms which they did eat just fine. There are no visible signs of parasites or anything right now. I did notice a bit of a stringy poo but it was probably just the start of one because when I checked again it was gone and there were healthy-looking poos on the bottom. This might be tmi but I'm trying to be thorough and I really don't want to lose these guys. I salted the tank up to .3% as a precaution which I usually do with all of my new arrivals. I couldn't find anything about them being sensitive to salt, but it's possible that it might be what's irritating them. What do you guys think? I have a lot more experience with goldfish and identifying diseases on them, but I'm really inexperienced with cichlids and haven't had any luck except with my brackish ones. Thanks!
-Missy
