unclenedsfishfactory.com

ram problems

The fish will then start to hide and lose some color and start to breathe heavily and not eat.Then the fish will sit on the bottom or hide until death. The deterioration happens very quickly. For instance, 6 hours ago my last two Rams were healthy, and now one of them is at the 'lose color and breathing heavily' phase. They usually die within 24 hours when this happens. I saw a couple of them 'floating and sinking' around similar to a swim bladder problem shortly before death.
sounds a little like
" Bloat "
I treat this with Metronidazole


Here are my parameters:

ammonia: 0
nitrite: 0
nitrate 5
dKH: 4
dGH: 5
pH 7.8
might be a little high, but ours are in 7.5
maybe cut it with some RO water

Temp: 80F
No Salt

I have 7 Boesemani, 2 Dwarf Gourami, and a Tiger Pleco in with these fish.
are all those healthy ?
My tank is a 55G. I feed a mix of frozen blood worm, frozen brine, frozen black mosquito larvae, HGH Super Soft spirulina pellets, OmegaOne flakes, and rarely Hikari brine shrimp.
it's rare but possible for frozen food to be bad
but
in general I would have said that that is an excellent diet


I use Amquel+ and Novaqua+ water treatment
you don't need both...
in fact
in a certain african cichlid (Tretocephalus)
I have found that a 4 X overdose was fatal, acted like slow poison
when doing weekly 40% water changes.
water changes are normally the best thing to do for your tank
...on rare occasions, the tap water is bad


The sick Ram is now is a quarantine tank and will probably perish within a day.

Hopefully you have a suggestion, because I'm almost out of them. Maybe I'm feeding some food that doesn't agree with them?
could be
Bad dechlorinator possibly.
could be...
in fact, I have heard
but do not know for sure
that if water conditioners get frozen
they can go bad
Stress from the Rainbows?
doubtful
my rams are in with MacCullachi rainbows


What do you feed yours and what do you use for a dechlor?
our rams get
bulk green flake
several flavors of Omega Sea flake
frozen brine
and other frozen foods
...occasionally live baby brine (when we hatch it)
Thanks for responding with any ideas. I'm getting frustrated with this one.