darkfur Posted May 20, 2008 Report Share Posted May 20, 2008 Can anyone help me work out what killed my two young gold balloon rams? I got them in March and they had been doing well in my community tank, or so I thought, they had gotten brighter in colour, grown and developed more irridescence. Also they were more tame, came up to look at me through the glass. Also in the tank: a pair of gold gouramis just now approaching breeding size, 2 neon tetras, a zebra danio, 6 guppies and 6 platies, 4 baby GBAs. The tank chemistry was always good during this period, no detectable nitrate or nitrite most of the time. A couple of weeks ago I added some new plants (dwarf sag.) and some new fish, 6 x conchu blue tetras. By my calcs the tank was not overloaded by adding these fish, there was a tiny blip of nitrite and nitrate but never to dangerous levels on day 3 and 4 after they were added but it went away again. Soon after this the two rams started acting mopy, they were spending most of their time in the lower depths of the tank. They appeared to not like the conchus very much but who can tell what a fish is thinking? Over a period of a few days one stopped eating entirely, hid in some rocks in the back bottom of the tank and then went belly-up. The other one lasted a couple of days longer and spent less time in hiding but went the same way. My question is what caused their deaths: some of the sag had lead ties on them which I did not remove, could this have poisoned the rams? or were the conchus too boisterous? they are quite active, but much smaller than the rams were. BTW I can't find any info on conchus on the internet. I was checking the rams for any external signs of disease and there was nothing to see even with a good post-mortem looking over. I also did daily checks of the water quality, the nitrites by my relatively insensitive dipstick test were always less than 2, and the nitrates less than 20. The rams have been happy in worse conditions than that. Can anyone identify the killer? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dixon1990 Posted May 20, 2008 Report Share Posted May 20, 2008 Balloon Rams arent know to be the most hardy fish, let alone normal rams. They can sometimes die and usually do for no known reason at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tHEcONCH Posted May 20, 2008 Report Share Posted May 20, 2008 I don't think any oxidizable metal in a tank is a good idea, but I'd be suprised if it only killed the Rams and not other fish too. I'd chalk it up to line (in) breeding and weak genetics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrienne Posted May 20, 2008 Report Share Posted May 20, 2008 Hate to say it - but - thats what rams do, IME anyway - they die at the drop of a hat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DutchKiwiCowboy2 Posted May 23, 2008 Report Share Posted May 23, 2008 Sorry to hear of your loss I have 5 gold rams and all my plants still have the lead on them, no problems there. I haven't had mine all that long and they are my first ones, so I can't tell you anything from experience. Do dipsticks measure in ppm? (parts per million?) if so then 20 would be getting up there. If they weren't fully fit that might have pushed them off the edge. I do know that they aren't the hardiest of fish to begin with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryanjury Posted May 23, 2008 Report Share Posted May 23, 2008 What were the other symptoms? All of my blue rams and my golds (bar one) faded away they either had little lumps or holes in their head and started to breath heavily, sometimes they looked ok but just got gradually worse, water was fine etc, just seems to be one of those things with rams Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kd123 Posted May 23, 2008 Report Share Posted May 23, 2008 The first rams I had that died had similar symptoms to ryanjurys but the last two have just died within hours and didnt have any noticeable marks or deterioration. Maybe its just a different group of fish, weaker perhaps... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharn Posted May 25, 2008 Report Share Posted May 25, 2008 Cochu's are quite boisterous fish, they seem to pick on anyone and everyone IME so its possible they contributed to some of the Rams stress before they died? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkfur Posted May 25, 2008 Author Report Share Posted May 25, 2008 my fish did seem to be breathing a bit heavier, but it was mostly listlessness I noticed. I have seem some for sale in LFS that had bright red gills - IMHO probably really bad sign but they were there for months and didn't seem to get worse. If anything mine were looking better and better until the last few days before their deaths, they had gotten noticeably brighter colours. The conchus didn't seem to be having a go at them specifically, they were just being psycho and zooming around and sometimes collided or got within the rams personal space. I can't think that it was 'just one of those things' with the 2 of them dying at the same time Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkfur Posted May 25, 2008 Author Report Share Posted May 25, 2008 ps sharn do you know anywhere i can get more info on the conchus? I can't find info on the net? or a latin name would be a good start Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DutchKiwiCowboy2 Posted May 25, 2008 Report Share Posted May 25, 2008 I came across this when I googled blue tetra. Is this what you mean? http://www.aquariumlife.net/profiles/ch ... 100133.asp Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkfur Posted May 27, 2008 Author Report Share Posted May 27, 2008 that's them, frisky little chaps that they are! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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