Saltwater & Reef

dkpate · 01-31-2011, 09:26 PM

Poor Bernard. I am out of ideas, but have you tried the salt baths?

hbeth82 · 01-31-2011, 10:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SeverumGuy

My bolivian ram was doing the same thing a couple weeks ago. He did it for about 4 days and finally passed away. I found him sucked up agains the filter. I have a Penguin 350 and he was sucked against the top part. I think he was swimming up there and just didn't have the energy to get off. Poor guy. I still have my German blue ram though =D

Sorry to hear about loosing your ram but I hope the German blue does better. I think my boyfriend lost all of his waffles to a similar filter problem - poor little guys couldn't compete with the AC 70

Did you ever have any idea what might have been wrong with the ram that wouldn't eat? That's part of what bugs me, not knowing what the problem is so I'm not sure how to respond.

hbeth82 · 01-31-2011, 10:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dkpate

Poor Bernard. I am out of ideas, but have you tried the salt baths?

Thanks for the suggestion and nope, haven't tried that yet. Not knowing what the problem is, is there much chance this could make it worse? Also do you know what the ratio of aquarium salt : water should be? Found one site that suggested "1 lb of salt for every 10 gallons of water (a 1.2% solution)" which seems pretty extreme. I think I'll probably put in in a 5gal bucket for the treatment.

SeverumGuy · 01-31-2011, 11:24 PM

No I never found out what the problem was. All my other fish are fine including my German blue. I figured it was just a bad pick.

dkpate · 02-01-2011, 01:07 AM

There is a lady on here who knows the salt bath recipe, I will see if I can find the post.

hbeth82 · 02-01-2011, 09:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dkpate

There is a lady on here who knows the salt bath recipe, I will see if I can find the post.

Awesome, thanks. Tried looking but all I could find was people saying that salt baths can help, not how much salt to use.

dkpate · 02-01-2011, 04:06 PM

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums...ch-138409.html

Post #38

hbeth82 · 02-01-2011, 04:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dkpate

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums...ch-138409.html

Post #38

Excellent, thank you! It'll be late when I get home tonight but since it looks like we're in for a snow day tomorrow, think I'll try it then.

dkpate · 02-01-2011, 09:08 PM

Good luck! And I would email that lady if you have questions, she even volunteered to help that other girl, using the chat room.

hbeth82 · 02-01-2011, 10:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dkpate

And I would email that lady if you have questions, she even volunteered to help that other girl, using the chat room.

I saw that, thinking about asking her whether longer in the salt bath would be okay or if short dips are best. I know I've seen elsewhere that people recommend 30+ minute baths but that may depend on the salinity of the bath. Just noticed I'm also out of aquarium salt but Mother Nature's still piling the snow & ice at my front door!

dkpate · 02-02-2011, 03:00 AM

Good luck with the storm!!!

hbeth82 · 02-02-2011, 08:47 PM

Storm was a disappointment, rather poor show for a 'snow-mageddon'!

Just did the salt bath and I don't think I'll try that again, at least not at the concentration that WendiDell recommended, 28oz water : 1tbs aquarium salt. I used 64oz water from the tank and a little over 2tbs of the salt. Put Bernard in the bath and in less than a minute he was on his side, gasping at the surface. I tried to nudge him back upright but he always went back to laying on his side. Once he managed to right himself and kept swimming downwards, as though he was swimming into a current. I couldn't stand to leave him in there for the full 5 minutes recommended, maybe 4 minutes at most.

Any idea what might have caused this? Does salt somehow remove oxygen from the water? I'm scared to do this again until I find out what went wrong.

dkpate · 02-02-2011, 09:12 PM

Yikes! That doesn't sound too good.

I have never done a salt bath, maybe if you start a thread on it?
I am not sure about the oxygen, but I would think the salt would shrivel their gills, like it does your tongue when you have too much. Gills are pretty much just exposed flesh. Does that make sense? LOL

hbeth82 · 02-02-2011, 09:42 PM

Thanks, good idea. Maybe I can get some other ideas on what might be wrong.

hbeth82 · 02-06-2011, 10:38 PM

An update (that I really hope won't jinx things):

Bernard seems to be doing better. He hadn't shown any improvement right after the salt bath but last night he ate a decent amount of the frozen brine shrimp before he started spitting anything out and tonight he didn't spit any of this food out!!! Don't know if the 3 Parasite Clear treatments just took a while to work, if the salt bath pushed it over the edge, or what did the trick but hopefully he'll keep eating. Thanks for the advice & support!!!