traumatic week & cichlids won't come out of hiding to eat - advice?

[hbeth82]

Not entirely sure what happened but this past Wednesday / Thursday, the 250W heater in my boyfriend's 50gal tank overheated and killed 4 of the 6 fish (3 tiger barbs and the synodontis catfish - details on another thread). Water temps had gotten up to 97, reached 73 this morning but coming back up. Replaced the heater with an old glass one and have left the lights off to help the fish recover but they still won't come out of hiding, a HRP/convict and a salvini. The convict will eat if food is dropped right where she's hiding but doubt the salvini is eating anything. He briefly tried turning on one of the lights earlier today and the convict had a fit.

Any idea about why the fish still won't come out of hiding? We're not sure if it's because the water temp is a bit too cold and they're feeling lethargic, they're still traumatized after everything Thursday and all the changes over the last few days, or if it's just the lack of ditherers to help them feel that everything is safe. Checked the water parameters and everything seems fine (0 ammonia & nitrite, nitrate < 20ppm). Thoughts?

Thanks for everybody's help in dealing with this!

 

[pgreptom]

I'm sure this isn't what you want to hear, but...

They're stressed - and at this point the main thing you need to do is to get the water back to regular temperature... and make SURE you have extra oxygen!

When your water gets that hot, the quality of oxygen is greatly diminished... the "aftershock" of any event like that is most people don't know that. Get an airpump +airstone hooked up, if you have one of those cascade filters... attach the oxygen bubble thing... in general just make sure you get extra oxygen in the water.

Temperature wise.. try to get the temperature regulated... but do not over compensate and make it too cold to where it stresses the fish more. That's the las thing you want to do.

I'm sorry for your losses.

 

[hbeth82]

They're stressed - and at this point the main thing you need to do is to get the water back to regular temperature... and make SURE you have extra oxygen!

When your water gets that hot, the quality of oxygen is greatly diminished... the "aftershock" of any event like that is most people don't know that. Get an airpump +airstone hooked up, if you have one of those cascade filters... attach the oxygen bubble thing... in general just make sure you get extra oxygen in the water.

Temperature wise.. try to get the temperature regulated... but do not over compensate and make it too cold to where it stresses the fish more. That's the las thing you want to do.

I'm sorry for your losses.

Thanks for the sympathy and advice, that's pretty much everything that I did in response to finding the fish dead, just hadn't wanted to restate in this thread. Nice to know I didn't make anything worse.

Water temp is at 76 but so far little to no sign of the fish. I know I've heard that 'smarter' fish, like cichlids, benefit from having the 'dumber' dithering fish around as it can make the cichlids feel more secure - if the dumb fish aren't scared and hiding, cichlids may feel like there's less reason to stay hidden. I'm wondering if that may not be at least part of what's going on, or whether they're just still too freaked out. We'd like to see the fish partially just to make sure they haven't been injured after all of this.

Should we try adding a few ditherers (most likely platys) and turning on the lights for an hour or so a day, or give the two fish a few more days of quiet and darkness and see how that goes?

Thanks!

 

[mattrox]

Most likely they are scared as a sudden lack of fish may trigger the "predator alert" and the fish are hiding as a responce to that. Try adding some more dither fish.

I would keep the lighting pattern the same, though. Keep up the same routine as usual.

 

[hbeth82]

Most likely they are scared as a sudden lack of fish may trigger the "predator alert" and the fish are hiding as a responce to that. Try adding some more dither fish.

Thanks, that's kind of what we were thinking but it helps to hear it from someone else! A professor in his department a small herd of platys which she's offered several times before so he hopeful about getting a few of them as they're more likely to be healthy than anything from an LFS.

Also turned the lights back on but at a reduced schedule, a few hours in the morning and a few in the evening. Hopefully getting some other fish in there will help!