yoshimitsuspeed
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- Mar 31, 2013
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I guess I'll start at the begining. I had a 20 gallon tank that had a betta, clown plec I had had for probably five years, and a few blue crayfish in it. I bought a baby bristlenose because the Clown wan't coming close to taking care of the algae.
One day I overfilled the tank so thre was no air in a section. The water came up to the glass top. There was a smal chip in the corner of the glass and unfortunately in a search for air the betta jumpped out. I decided I wanted to get something that would get a little bigger. Finally after a lot of research I settled on an EBJD. I decided that I would start him in this tank and when he outgrew it I would get somethign bigger. My local pet store (not really much of a fish store) told me they could get an EBJD. They also told me it would be $30 then charged $60 to my credit card when it came in. Another rant for another time. I called the owner and he flipped out on me and told me it wasn't their fault and they had no way of knowing how much it would cost. Even though they told me how much it would be before ordering it. He yelled at me and told me never to come back, as though I would have.
Anyway it was a dang pretty fish and I was happy enough about that. I have heard many horror stories about raising young EBJD but mine was doing great. He was very healthy and enerjetic.
At this point I decided to get a little creative. I made a top for the tank to turn it into an aquaponics garden.
Since this was completely experamental I got all the stuff I had never used much of. In tank amonia monitor, Nitrite and Nitrate test, PH tester, PPM meter. I for a long time I always had understocked super low maintenence tanks so didn't need to do much to take care of them. Now I was on top of it monitoring everything a couple times a week to see how the new system behaved. After a couple weeks the nitrites and nitrates dropped from very low to basically zero. I suspect PH started around 9 although it was off the chart of the tester I had at the time. I got a better meter and at that point it was about 8.5. Over the next couple weeks it dropped to about 8. The system seemed to be doing perfectly. The water stayed around 450 PPM.
I went to Petco (closest thing I have to a LFS) and got a couple killifish and corys. The EBJD didn't do a very good job of getting the food that collected at the top of the tank so I got the killi's to patrol the surface. The EBJD did not like the corys though so I threw them in my other 15Gal that had another betta, and a couple blue crayfish in it.
The brislenose grew very quick and when he was about 2/3s the size of the clown he started picking on him and harassing him pretty hard so I decided to throw him in the 15 gallon tank too. This tank has a similar setup only it's just a few young flowers growing out of the top. Again levels were very low. Nitrite almost zero and Nitrate at very acceptable levels. PH and harndess were the same as the other tank.
A couple weeks later the Clown started to get little white specs on it. Pretty sure it was ich I turned up the heat, added some salt and some tea tree oil. A couple days later he seemed unwell. I dipped the clown in a bath of water with a little salt and a little tee tree oil hoping it would help. He died the next day. Possibly due to the bath being too strong, possibly not. The rest of the fish were doing very well.
A couple weeks later the EBJD went from being very hyper to a little mellower. I did start to get a little concerned but he had grown a lot and had already gone through a couple small temperment changes in the process. I thought it may just be another. He stopped eating for the most part at feeding time but he did keep chasing the shrimp around the tank and seemed to be staying plump enough. He always liked the RCS more than anything else.
So just a few days ago I decide I want to add a few more fish. Since the EBJD had mellowed out a bit I tried two corys again and he didn't bother them too much. I went to petco and got four jade corys which I hoped would get a little bigger so they could live in the big tank for a while before the EBJD got too big. I got a couple upside down catfish to clean the top of the net pots in the big tank and some otocinclus for the smaller tank. I put them all in the small tank to start though as a quarenteen before putting them in the tank I really cared about.
The nexd day one emerald cory was dead and a few ottos were missing. I thought it was unusual but hoped maybe it was just bad luck and stress from the trip.
The next day a couple more new corys were looking lathargic and unwell so I started doing some research. They had areas of dull discoloration which I decided was most likely velvet or possibly Columnaris. One thing that jumped out at me was that with velvet you often see flashing. The EBJD had been flashing off and on for a couple weeks. Remember the EBJD and new corys were in different tanks and had never come in contact though.
I raced out to look at the EBJD more closely and see if there were any signs of velvet. There didn't appear to be any but for the first time he looked like he really wasn't doing well.
I started velvet treatment as best I could with what I had. I put blankets around the tanks, turned the heat up, added some salt and a couple drops of tee tree oil on both tanks.
I checked on them a couple hours later and the EBJD was dead. I pulled him out of the tank and started looking him over really good. His gills looked very nice so I felt that kind of confirmed it wasn't Columnaris. There were no signs of velvet either. When I started looking much more closely I finally noticed an ulcer barely visible above his eye. In researching other diseases I rememberd reading of one similar so I did more research.
Hexamita, bingo. He had white stringy poop last week. I thought maybe he just ate somethign funky or was constipated or somethign. Low energy and a hole in his head.
Now I have had four fish die with three different symptoms in a short period of time. The Corys do look like they are already doing better with the velvet treatment.
I usually laugh at people who apologise for a long post but this one is quite long. I felt it would be helpful to see what fish were introduced and how some did get transfered between tanks a couple times and several were added. It makes it hard to figure out if it came from a particular fish, more than one or if it was an outside source. One of the most important things now is I want to make sure I am not doing somethign that is causing or agitating stress and disease. It seems to me most likely that the EBJD at least showed up with the Hexamita. I can't say it was all from him but my troubles did all begin shortly after he arrived.
I have read that the most likely cause for Hexamita to take over is stress or a bad diet. I can't believe this though. He was as happy as could be. He was a little stressed for the first couple days after I got him home and then he owned that tank. He would go after the killis if they came down from the surface but didn't seem to care about them when they were up there and they quickly learned that was their domain. I highly doubt diet. He would spend all day hunting RCS. I would feed everyone a couple times a day. I would mix up what I fed using a combination of Aqueon ciclid pellets, algae wafers, Tetra color flakes, shrimp pellets and krill. Once the aquaponics system took over I upped feeding a lot since I wanted nutrients in the water and couldn't get amonia, nitrites or nitrates to go even measurable on the tests. I fed them two to three times a day.
As for the other tank I fed all the same except the ciclid pellets which were replaced with betta bites. I also fed the small tank considerably less.
So is this just a really unlucky series of events? Could a sick fish or multiple sick fish have brought all this in? Or is there something that I am missing when it comes to water quality or something else?
Simply due to cost I'm not going to try the EBJD again but I think I want to get a regular Jack dempsey. That guy was a really fun fish. Before anything though I want to know that my system is healthy and that there isn't something causing these problems that needs to be fixed.
I will also be selling these aquaponics tops so if there is anthing that could possibly be influencing this due to that I need to get it resolved. I just can't imagine it is though. The water stays cleaner, the biofilter puts standard filters to shame. On top of that Aquaponics has been well proven so unless it's somethign I'm doing wrong it shouldn't be an issue.
It is unfortunate that I had such a negitive experience from the store I got the EBJD. I will talk to Petco and see if they have had any outbreaks or anything unusual recently but I don't have any desire to have the same conversation with this other store. I don't want anything to do with them but it would be nice to know if it could be traced back to something. Oh well. lesson learned I guess. I wish Petco wasn't the best/only option anywhere near me but I guess it is.
One day I overfilled the tank so thre was no air in a section. The water came up to the glass top. There was a smal chip in the corner of the glass and unfortunately in a search for air the betta jumpped out. I decided I wanted to get something that would get a little bigger. Finally after a lot of research I settled on an EBJD. I decided that I would start him in this tank and when he outgrew it I would get somethign bigger. My local pet store (not really much of a fish store) told me they could get an EBJD. They also told me it would be $30 then charged $60 to my credit card when it came in. Another rant for another time. I called the owner and he flipped out on me and told me it wasn't their fault and they had no way of knowing how much it would cost. Even though they told me how much it would be before ordering it. He yelled at me and told me never to come back, as though I would have.
Anyway it was a dang pretty fish and I was happy enough about that. I have heard many horror stories about raising young EBJD but mine was doing great. He was very healthy and enerjetic.
At this point I decided to get a little creative. I made a top for the tank to turn it into an aquaponics garden.
Since this was completely experamental I got all the stuff I had never used much of. In tank amonia monitor, Nitrite and Nitrate test, PH tester, PPM meter. I for a long time I always had understocked super low maintenence tanks so didn't need to do much to take care of them. Now I was on top of it monitoring everything a couple times a week to see how the new system behaved. After a couple weeks the nitrites and nitrates dropped from very low to basically zero. I suspect PH started around 9 although it was off the chart of the tester I had at the time. I got a better meter and at that point it was about 8.5. Over the next couple weeks it dropped to about 8. The system seemed to be doing perfectly. The water stayed around 450 PPM.
I went to Petco (closest thing I have to a LFS) and got a couple killifish and corys. The EBJD didn't do a very good job of getting the food that collected at the top of the tank so I got the killi's to patrol the surface. The EBJD did not like the corys though so I threw them in my other 15Gal that had another betta, and a couple blue crayfish in it.
The brislenose grew very quick and when he was about 2/3s the size of the clown he started picking on him and harassing him pretty hard so I decided to throw him in the 15 gallon tank too. This tank has a similar setup only it's just a few young flowers growing out of the top. Again levels were very low. Nitrite almost zero and Nitrate at very acceptable levels. PH and harndess were the same as the other tank.
A couple weeks later the Clown started to get little white specs on it. Pretty sure it was ich I turned up the heat, added some salt and some tea tree oil. A couple days later he seemed unwell. I dipped the clown in a bath of water with a little salt and a little tee tree oil hoping it would help. He died the next day. Possibly due to the bath being too strong, possibly not. The rest of the fish were doing very well.
A couple weeks later the EBJD went from being very hyper to a little mellower. I did start to get a little concerned but he had grown a lot and had already gone through a couple small temperment changes in the process. I thought it may just be another. He stopped eating for the most part at feeding time but he did keep chasing the shrimp around the tank and seemed to be staying plump enough. He always liked the RCS more than anything else.
So just a few days ago I decide I want to add a few more fish. Since the EBJD had mellowed out a bit I tried two corys again and he didn't bother them too much. I went to petco and got four jade corys which I hoped would get a little bigger so they could live in the big tank for a while before the EBJD got too big. I got a couple upside down catfish to clean the top of the net pots in the big tank and some otocinclus for the smaller tank. I put them all in the small tank to start though as a quarenteen before putting them in the tank I really cared about.
The nexd day one emerald cory was dead and a few ottos were missing. I thought it was unusual but hoped maybe it was just bad luck and stress from the trip.
The next day a couple more new corys were looking lathargic and unwell so I started doing some research. They had areas of dull discoloration which I decided was most likely velvet or possibly Columnaris. One thing that jumped out at me was that with velvet you often see flashing. The EBJD had been flashing off and on for a couple weeks. Remember the EBJD and new corys were in different tanks and had never come in contact though.
I raced out to look at the EBJD more closely and see if there were any signs of velvet. There didn't appear to be any but for the first time he looked like he really wasn't doing well.
I started velvet treatment as best I could with what I had. I put blankets around the tanks, turned the heat up, added some salt and a couple drops of tee tree oil on both tanks.
I checked on them a couple hours later and the EBJD was dead. I pulled him out of the tank and started looking him over really good. His gills looked very nice so I felt that kind of confirmed it wasn't Columnaris. There were no signs of velvet either. When I started looking much more closely I finally noticed an ulcer barely visible above his eye. In researching other diseases I rememberd reading of one similar so I did more research.
Hexamita, bingo. He had white stringy poop last week. I thought maybe he just ate somethign funky or was constipated or somethign. Low energy and a hole in his head.
Now I have had four fish die with three different symptoms in a short period of time. The Corys do look like they are already doing better with the velvet treatment.
I usually laugh at people who apologise for a long post but this one is quite long. I felt it would be helpful to see what fish were introduced and how some did get transfered between tanks a couple times and several were added. It makes it hard to figure out if it came from a particular fish, more than one or if it was an outside source. One of the most important things now is I want to make sure I am not doing somethign that is causing or agitating stress and disease. It seems to me most likely that the EBJD at least showed up with the Hexamita. I can't say it was all from him but my troubles did all begin shortly after he arrived.
I have read that the most likely cause for Hexamita to take over is stress or a bad diet. I can't believe this though. He was as happy as could be. He was a little stressed for the first couple days after I got him home and then he owned that tank. He would go after the killis if they came down from the surface but didn't seem to care about them when they were up there and they quickly learned that was their domain. I highly doubt diet. He would spend all day hunting RCS. I would feed everyone a couple times a day. I would mix up what I fed using a combination of Aqueon ciclid pellets, algae wafers, Tetra color flakes, shrimp pellets and krill. Once the aquaponics system took over I upped feeding a lot since I wanted nutrients in the water and couldn't get amonia, nitrites or nitrates to go even measurable on the tests. I fed them two to three times a day.
As for the other tank I fed all the same except the ciclid pellets which were replaced with betta bites. I also fed the small tank considerably less.
So is this just a really unlucky series of events? Could a sick fish or multiple sick fish have brought all this in? Or is there something that I am missing when it comes to water quality or something else?
Simply due to cost I'm not going to try the EBJD again but I think I want to get a regular Jack dempsey. That guy was a really fun fish. Before anything though I want to know that my system is healthy and that there isn't something causing these problems that needs to be fixed.
I will also be selling these aquaponics tops so if there is anthing that could possibly be influencing this due to that I need to get it resolved. I just can't imagine it is though. The water stays cleaner, the biofilter puts standard filters to shame. On top of that Aquaponics has been well proven so unless it's somethign I'm doing wrong it shouldn't be an issue.
It is unfortunate that I had such a negitive experience from the store I got the EBJD. I will talk to Petco and see if they have had any outbreaks or anything unusual recently but I don't have any desire to have the same conversation with this other store. I don't want anything to do with them but it would be nice to know if it could be traced back to something. Oh well. lesson learned I guess. I wish Petco wasn't the best/only option anywhere near me but I guess it is.
/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melafix
