120 gal cichlid problems

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sarahh

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Feb 11, 2010
Messages
252
Location
Atlanta
1~What type of fish is afflicted? In addition, please describe what is wrong with the fish to the best of your ability (i.e. cotton like growth, bloated, etc.).

2 fish affected, 2 different things.
1 female johanni. moping around at top of tank near the heater intake.

1 acei adult. has one white spot in the middle of this body.. a white protrusion that comes out in the middle of his body. it's small, like 1 millimeter. it's kinda like a little handle.

2~What are your tank parameters (ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, temp, pH)? Please give exact values.
ammonia 0
nitrate and nitrite both 0
water is hard
chlorine 0
pH 7.7

3~ How large is the tank? How long has the tank been set up?

120 gallon. about 4 months

4~What type of filtration are you using? Please give the name and number (i.e. Fluval 304) and amount of gph if known.
2* marineland biowheels

5~How many fish are in the tank? What kinds of fish are they and what are their current sizes?

acei, about 5 inches
johanni female about 5 inches
johanni male about 5 inches
tropheus about 5 ish inches
red zebra, 2 about 5/6 inches

6~When is the last time you did a water change and vacuum the gravel? How often do you do this? How much water do you remove at a time?

tuesday last week

7~How long have you had the fish? If the fish is new, how did you acclimate it/them?

a few months now

8~Have you added anything new to the tank--decor, new dechlorinator, new substrate, etc.?
have recently moved tanks from a too small 55 gal.

9~What kind of food have you been feeding your fish, have you changed their diet recently?
cichlid pellets, spirulina flakes, cichlid flakes, bloodworm (freeze dried) and the other day a friend threw a worm in the tank. Mrs J didn't get ay of it though

Sorry it's been a rough week with the fish. I'm keeping all the nets apart and cleaning them after use. I noticed mr Johannii was shimmying for Mrs the other week, i don't know if maybe she's holding or smething, but it's a worry.

acei seems healthy, he''s swimming fine, not rubbing or scratching. I tried to get photos of the spot, but it doesn't come out in the shots.
 
here are the bst shots i could get of the spot and stumpy
Just watching them, the johanni is swimming a bit, but sticking to the sides and getting pshed around by the current. the spot is above the end of the fin in th first shot.
 

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first thing i would do is a 50% pwc... clean water is always a good place to start. does the white spot on the acei look like a scale is missing by any chance (couldnt tell much from the picture)... doesnt look like ich, at least not yet. as for the female johanni hanging out at the top, i have a fish that does that and has for some time now. i'm not sure why either. does it otherwise look ok? one thing about your feeding, i would highly recommend against feeding bloodworms or anything high in protein. fish from lake malawi are highly susceptible to what's referred to as "malawi bloat", which is caused by feeding food high in protein... do any of the fish look bloated by any chance?
 
Sweet!! pwc seemed to help a lot. I also noticed that the temperature had gone up to 80 so i lowered it to 77/78 over a few hours. It was kinda at the high end of comfortable for the johannii.
Encouraging news is that they both ate tonight. Stumpy took a few mouthfuls of food, then spat them out, then ate them again (she's a wierdo)

Thanks for the heads up about the bloodworm. i will leave it out of the treat bag from now on. None of them look bloated at all so that's good.

to be honest the white spot looks like a little worm hanging out (but not an actual worm) the scale affected is missing.
 
if it looks like a worm coming out, it could potentially be a parasite... but if the scale is missing, i'd say its probably just an injury that's healing... keep clean water, i'd do a water change every other day until it looks better just to be on the safe side
 
I agree with Jonathan about the Acei. Glad to see the water change helped. :) Is there a male (or 2) chasing/harassing the female Johanni? Sometimes fish will be at the top of the tank trying to hide. And sometimes they just do that. As long as she isn't gasping at the surface and still eats, I wouldn't worry too much.

Great pics by the way!
 
thanks for th help guys. today the johanni is swimming around happily. she is staying up the top still but happy to swim around. The red zebras are kinda running point on her. keeping all the other fish away, so i think she should be fine.
Phew!! i thought i was about to lose a bunch more fish..
 
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