Any Ideas What My Ram Died Of.......

[Nosnibor]

Hi all,

I've had my three Dutch/Blue/Euro Rams (whatever you want to call them, they all seem to look exactly the same but get called different names) for about a month now (1 Male 2 Females) and they were all perfectly getting on and swimming around etc. I noticed a couple of day's ago that one of the female Ram's started to hide a little most of the time. As time went by she started loosing her punchy colours, open and close her mouth constantly and not come out until we went looking for her, then she just went back and hid behind a plant.

The day before that we did about a 30-40% water change, we didn't mean to do such a large one but got carried away with the Python vacuuming . We added the water as slowly as we could out of the tap and I obviously added the Aqua-Plus liquid. On reflection I should have stopped halfway and waited for the heater to heat the water before carrying on, I believe the temperature dropped from 25 to about 22 degrees Do you think this is what started it off?

This is the only change we have made and they were all so happy prior to the PWC! The rest are as happy as pigs in doodoo!

My water is fine as always, all at 0.0mg apart from the Nitrate which is at the tap level (15mg).

Any ideas of what it could have been would be really helpful as we wouldn't mind keeping in stock some medication that we could have used to save her, or at least have tried.

Ideally, we were thinking about buying a hospital tank that clips on the inside of the tank (if there is one), so just in case a fish looks unwell we can take him/her out, place in the hospital tank over night and treat. Does that sound like a good idea?

Cheers

Martin

 

[rdd1952]

It's hard to say what might have caused the fish to die. I'm no expert on diseases and infections so I don't even know the questions to ask about the fish's appearance or behavior. I wouldn't think that the water temperature would be the issue. A lot of people on here say they do water changes straight from the tap and have a few degree drop in temp without any problem. I prefer to mix hot and cold when I do a WC just to keep the temp about the same.

A hospital tank is always a good idea when you have a sick fish, especially if you are going to medicate it. It's always better to medicate just the sick fish as opposed o the whole tank as some medications will kill your bacteria colony. I've never seen a clip on one though. Most people just use a smallish tank, like 5 or 10 gallon (unless it's a really big fish).

 

[01edmn]

i'd say probably that blue and gold rams being sensetive they are very sensetive fish from what i've hurd whats you ph

 

[ArauraDiscus]

Idk partial discoloring and constant gasping motions sound like ammonia poisoning in all honesty. Partial water changes of 40 percent are nothing, 80 percent is no big deal either. Some people do 100 percent twice a day when breeding discus. That temperature change, I imagine is about 9 degrees fahrenheit?? You should have turned the tap water on hotter, not ice cold. Make sure you adjust your faucet next time. But small temperature changes of less than 10 degrees aren't enough to make a fish drop dead. Discus enjoy a nice change of a little over 6 degrees fahrenheit, it actually induces spawning.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

it's unlikely to have been temp drop that killed her, 2/3oC is perfectly copable with.

if there were no other symptoms are her condition worsened straight after water change i'd be inclined to think some other level in your water was different to usual which has given her a shock.

things like your pH, gH, kH, nitrate content, potassium, phosphate, copper and about a zillion other things in your tap water fluctuate at different times of the year with environmental conditions, with the extreme weather we've had recently it's quite possible that there was something in your water supply that isn't usually there which caused her the problems.

nigh on impossible to prove as whatever it is may well be gone by now, but i would take a sample of your tank and tap waters to a good lfs and ask them to test it for everything that they can, see if you can spot an anomoly. if your tap water turns up an unusual result keep a sample of it and contact the water company, until it's sorted i'd advise buying RO water from any shop which sells marines and remineralising it and doing water changes with that.

not a definite answer but it's a possibility.