Pics: should i be worried?

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Cactuspixie

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Jan 20, 2013
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1,830
Location
Queensland Australia
Bit of background: A couple of days ago I woke up to find almost all the fish in one of my 6' tanks gasping at the surface. I took a water sample and set about the first of 3 large water changes. During this process I found the lifeless bodies of my largest Synodontis Nigriventris (11+ cm) and my 2 Siamese algae eaters (13+cm). The Nigriventris had a very round tummy. The SAE were perfect (other than being dead). The only anomalies in the water tests were high nitrates (80+) and lower than usual ph (6.4 instead of 6.6-6.8 ). I have 3 large canisters packed with biomedia, so my best guess is the Nigriventris died undetected by me because they stay hidden from view anyway, which caused the spike in nitrates, which in turn lowered the ph and killed the SAE. All speculation of course. So on to the pics that concern me: First is one of my synodontis eupterus. He is not behaving normally- instead of hanging around his huge piece of driftwood and patrolling his patch, he is hanging in the corner by the pipes. You can see in the pic he has quite a rounded tummy: image-1012789289.jpg The next pic is another of my Nigriventris. He is in his driftwood cave, which is normal enough, but look at his abdomen! image-2445722220.jpg image-316848633.jpg I've been keeping the lights off or on dim a lot because it's been hot here. The tank is at 28 Celsius with the heater turned off. There have been no further deaths, but do you think I may be in for a couple more??
ETA: there is also a 24w inline uv running 24/7 on this tank.
 
I got a close up of the mark on his abdomen, and it looks like a bite mark? Perhaps from the other eupterus. Maybe that's why he's hiding in the corner afraid to hang out around the driftwood?


image-4227282693.jpg

He really looks quite bloated, will not leave that corner- not even when I touch him, and he has NEVER let me get close, much less touch him.
image-2205380965.jpg
 
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