What's Wrong With Him?

[Tobigara]

Something is wrong with my JD. He's just laying down on the bottom of the tank. he's breathing pretty normally and he eats a bit but not with his usual gusto. he swims around for a minute or 2 every hour or 2 and this is not normal. Any advice or suggestions are very welcome.

Tank stats:
4' 55gal
ph - 6.5
amm - 0
nitrite - 0
nitrate - 8

It's a mature tank with no illness that i can detect.

 

[ox5477]

Nothing most likely. Mine does that too. He is about 1.5 yrs old and almost full grown. He usually just sits on the bottom underneath some driftwood and only moves to put the pleco in it's place. Don't worry, I'm sure it's prefectly fine

 

[Tobigara]

does yours eat when he acts like that? mine stopped eating. also all his fins are clamped. he's been like this since friday.

 

[PoPoV]

How long have you had your jack? It almost sounds like he is shocked from aclamation. But as far as being sick goes its very hard to tell or diagnose a fish without having a picture of the fish and surrounding enviroment. Good luck aand keep us posted

 

[Tobigara]

he's about 5 or 6 months old. and he's been in the same tank the whole time. i have a hard time getting a pic of him because he's deep in his cave all the time. plus i'm at work right now i'll try to get a pic tonight

 

[ox5477]

Put food in at night (pellets or krill or whatever you feed him) and if the food isn't there in the morning, it's eating. Mine usually does not eat in the daytime, I put the food in about an hour before the lights are set to turn off and that allows the food to moisten a bit and if i come back maybe 2 or 2 hrs after the lights turn off, he is either just finishing off the food or it's all gone. I don't why he is so shy but that is what he does. He is quite skiddish too. I figured I just had a rare wouse but if your's is doing this too then I guess its more of a common trait for JD's.

What are it's tankmates?

 

[Tobigara]

a severum and 2 hoplos. which means i can't feed at night expecting just the jd to get to it before the hoplos. if he had always been like this i wouldn't be worried but this is a total 180. he was always the the first to greet me when i got home and he was never skittish.

 

[Tobigara]

he died.

 

[ox5477]

Sorry to hear that. He had no external appearance changes? no large gashes or wounds where he may of possibly run into some decor or something? Any visible changes at all?

 

[Tobigara]

there was nothing i could see. he was pretty pale when i got home from work last night but other than that nothing. he wasn't stressed as far as i can tell. he was pretty much king of the tank. i'm at a loss

 

[ox5477]

He might of felt stressed and felt cornered in the little corner he stayed in. How long have you had the sev and hoplos in with him? I have my JD in a 55G by himself. Usually, a 55G is not big enough for a single sev as they can get pretty darn big, near 10" atleast. How big is the sev? Did you ever see the two snip at eachother? If they fight and if the sev won, it could have been forcing the jd to hide all the time as he would therefore be the more dominant fish and therefore the JD would not eat and that would eventually cause illness and then death.

 

[darkwolf29a]

It sounds like s case of stress to me. I'm sorry for your loss. Two of my convicts did that just before they passed on. It was based upon the aggression level in the tank, which I didn't realize until too late.

I'd watch the rest of them though, just to be sure that you don't have something else wrong.

 

[GhostDogg]

Sorry to hear about your EBJD.
They're such beautiful fish too.

 

[ox5477]

wait... this was an EBJD? If thats the case then that may be a cause because EBJD's are very sensitive to any sort of changes in their environment and suseptable to disease as they are usually inbreed heavily because of so few JD's having the EB trait. He may of just had a short lifespan wired into his DNA or maybe even a small temperature or pH change could of affected it. Still, sorry for the loss

 

[GhostDogg]

I think it was an EDJD.
I've seen her in a few thread talking about her EBJD.
I'd like to own one, but I'm scared I don't have enough experience with cichlids.
I' know I'd be pissed if mine died, because they aren't cheap.
And I'd probably have to order/ship them in which would be really hard on them.