ryanjury

It might be this: http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/spironucleus.php Generally happens with fish that are lower down the pecking order I have had it in a peacock female that was kept with larger more aggressive haps and wasn't getting alot of food and was getting a hard time so it is brought on in fish that are more stressed. The fish that I had that was affected with it died despite the metro treatment and it was many months ago and I have never seen another affected fish so I don't think it is highly infectious, either that or my fish was affected with something else. I also think that maybe it might not even be spiral nucleus related I have seen it most often in females and often in peacocks so it seems to be those that are softer and less aggressive eaters so I think maybe it is just an opportunist infection that kicks in when the fish is so run down. There is of course the other options that people aren't feeding enough and females breeding all the time and being allowed to spit and getting run down and loosing condition. Or that they maybe filled with some sort of parasite that is making them waste away. BTW 2 weeks quarantine is pretty useless but is better than nothing. Most bugs (even spironucleus) can lay dormant for many months worms are terrible for this. Some people do preventative treatments for certain diseases before adding them into their systems again this has its issues. End of the day I have no answer for you my first port of call if you do have any fish affected with this would be to remove them and feed them up. If that doesn't work then try some meds and see what you can do. I would welcome any discussion on this as I have said the above is only my opinions and what I have seen or thought, I have seen this problem in a few tanks over the years and often wondered what was wrong.

Well he certainly looks happy enough.. If he isn't eating and you have seen white stingy poos then I would treat for hex using metro..

Sounds like you have a good plan.. I think the females can store and use the sperm for many drops however they tend to use fresher stuff I would love to see some creditable information on this if anyone has any

Well not awkward anymore but was a bit awkward telling livingart I had killed the male in the first place.. They were quite old fish and took a long time to settle probably bordering on too old and flighty to transport so thinking that maybe it was old age but who knows either way it sucked If anyone ever sees a male let me know, the female is living in Olly's tank at the moment because he could provide a better home with more compatible fish than I could for her.

No Don't ask its a bit of a sore point lets just say that Olly now has a female festivum in his tank awaiting a new male.. If anyone knows where one is let me know..

I would like to try and get some fish from Mark to Bulls if anyone is making the trip If anyone is making the trip or can help at all, even through to Palmy or Wanganui just let me know.. Cheers

I would just leave them too.. You only really need to worry about feeding very young egg layer fry if you are going away and if you have them in established tanks they seem to do fine, livebearers will be sweet for 5 days.

Sometimes you do have to bear in mind that alot of them are salespersons before they are fishkeepers and alot of them probably don't know any better Apologies to any of the descent shop workers out there I know there are plenty..

I am pretty sure that most of the manufacturers or staff may recommend it (because that is how they make money) but as long as the medium is doing its job then there is no need to replace it I have some that is many many years old and still functioning fine. I have met plenty of other fish keepers who complain about the costs of keeping fish and always mention how much it must cost me to replace all my filter sponges and stuff a couple of times a year so I am glad to spread the news that they don't have to either

Wow good work! Are the german blues from hollywoods? They look awesome.. Good luck with raising the fry!

Yep it is a good mix

I have some half grown oscars here who ate a 9cm or so silver shark so I would say eventually your smaller fish (yellows peacocks etc will get eaten).

You can keep other cichlids with discus nice peaceful dwarf cichlids.. But I agree with mystic not the ones you have, I wouldn't keep any fish I liked with ice blues they are nasty buggers (I know they are probably fine now but wait until they grow) and the others get too big and dominant for discus really. That is of course unless you have a huge tank where they all have a chance of having their own space.

Probably but with the jewels aggression I wouldn't want to be the discus.. If the jewels are babies and not breeding or territorial then it might be ok but otherwise I would say it would cause too much stress for your discus and not be worth the risk. JMO.

Sorry for your loss Unfortunately when we start meddling with things it can start to go wrong the more you meddle the worse it gets.. If I had a dollar for every fish I have had for 2months and not had them breed then I would be rich by now I find the best thing to do when they wont breed is stick them in a tank out of the way somewhere and forget about them chances are when you do that and stop putting so much effort into them you will look in and find they are breeding for you. Unfortunately as firenz has alluded to there maybe other factors at play here with these fish not being entirely natural and quite inbred there may be fertility issues. On a side note do you have any idea what the "ingredients" were in this viagra you tried?

Yeah that is what I was thinking I couldn't picture an old eheim heater but figured because they are now the same thing that was what you were referring to. I have a few old jagers going still, I brought one second had (who knows how old it was) like 5 years ago and it only just gave up about 6months ago so they are brilliant.

The old Eheims and jagers are usually awesome heaters as long as it isn't physically damaged or filled with water then it should be fine to use

I watched that Doco it was awesome Those fish are pretty big and the stories of people getting killed and taken by them seem pretty real..

I am not expert (will leave that to Jen) but Metro is no good for parasites anyway it treats bacteria or protozoa..It is usually used for hex which is an internal stomach problem or can present as HITH. http://www.wetwebmedia.com/metranidazole.htm

I think you really need to determine the type of parasite you are dealing with first otherwise you are wasting your time as you don't know what meds to use on it, also would have no idea on its life cycle. I would think it is also best to treat in the main tank to ensure it is completely wiped out. I have found dropping the water level helps save drugs, lower all your filter intakes, heaters etc to as low as they can go and then drop the water level to that height.

I don't have a clue it is impossible to tell nor does it really achieve anything if I did know what made them up, the ones I brought were direct from the wholesalers as kingsizei, and another batch from a well meaning enthusiast I don't know where he got the name from either. Who knows I brought 6 of them from the petshop for $24.95ea and sold them as hybrids to someone to go in their mixed zebra tank for $5ea it happens. I cannot guarantee they weren't kingsizei but they didn't match anything I had ever seen of that name on the net and there was alot of variation in shape/colour between the originals and in the fry. I find there are an awful lot of people who get a random blue zebra from a petshop jump on the net find a photo that matches and they instantly rename that fish to breed it and pass it on as that. No regard for the very likely possibility that they are hybrids and could have thrown back to resemble something that made them up in the previous generations. Of course there is every possibility that we have pure kingsizei here I have just never seen or kept any that I would call pure which is why I was asking Ymir if he had found a good source of them.

It is a difficult one and one of those ethical decisions.. I know when I sell demasoni I stress to people that you should have 12 minimum but some people come back and say they know this and they are happy to take xx number of them. I point out it is very likely that they will end up with 1 and they say they are happy to take the risk. Smaller colonies of these do work sometimes but it is only the very luck who end up with 1m and multiple females that have it work. End of the day you can only do so much I had one guy buy 2 demasoni off me with me kicking and screaming telling him not to, he ended up with a pair that breed successfully for him a few times but eventually the male got the female he used to come out to me and wind me up telling me my dems were super aggressive but had to come back and admit I was right

What have you been feeding them?

Gutted Sorry to hear about it livingart.. I kick myself every time I make a stupid mistake (that I know is stupid) and kill a fish that I liked there is nothing worse than doing it yourself

Sand is awesome for fish again it depends what type of cichlids and what you determine is harder work? It can buffer your water or do nothing depends on what sand you want to use? Coral sand and argonite buffer the water silica sand and others don't..