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Is your tank properly cycled? What the reading? Using what water conditioner?
Hi guys,
I originally posted in the anabantoids section but figured that I would get more eyeballs and possibly more answers if I posted in here.
Basically, my channa micropeltes babies keep dying. In fact, I managed to catch the last few moments before death on video:
http://youtu.be/GaK246hCT1A
The video shows only the last 10 - 20 seconds before death but they'll usually go berzerk for about 2 minutes before sudden death.
I just bought them today, and I've already lost 6 fishes this way. One moment they're swimming fine and the next they're doing death rolls all around my tank. I've got a few feeder shrimps as well as another channa of a different species in the tank and they're doing fine. I dumped about 2 table spoons of aquarium salt into the tank but it doesn't seem to help.
Might anyone have any idea why, and what I can do? This has been happening over the past 3 hours!
Is your tank properly cycled? What the reading? Using what water conditioner?
What was the acclimation procedure? It might be some kind of shock, as urbach above is suggesting
just an update:
I've had 15 fish die over the weekend and now I'm left with 4 micropeltes floating at the top. They're alive, but not really active. They seem to have a problem diving to the middle and bottom of the tank though. Maybe swim bladder? I don't know.
1. Acclimatisation
They've all been properly acclimatised. Put them in a pail with the water they came in and slowly topped that up with water from the tank every 15 minutes till the pail was full before netting them out and introducing them into the tank.
2. Water tests
Pretty high in ammonia, but I did a 70 - 80% water change on Sunday so now the ammonia levels are alright. I also bought Outbreak Freshwater bacteria and poured it into the water to solve the ammonia issues. I did another 30% water change today.
3. Parasitic infection
To combat parasites, I used a anti-parasite solution that I bought from the LFS. The shopkeeper said that it's used for arowana, so it should work for the snakehead. I did see some of my snakeheads execreting long white worms, so I suppose that must have worked. They still died in the end though.
4. The water changes probably diluted the salt in the tank, so that isn't really an issue now.
My Channa sp Fire and Ice is totally fine, though he's refusing to eat. I used market prawns, squid, and live feeder shrimp, but no luck. Now I'm just hoping that my 4 micropeltes don't die on me, though something tells me they're not going to make it to next week.
I would get a bigger specimen, but the shops seem to sell juvenile micropeltes only as feeders. Longest I've seen is about 4 - 5 inches?
Would be great if any experienced channa owners could spare a tip or two!
Last edited by jvlz; 17th Jun 2014 at 19:31.
have they been eating well ? if not you can try frozen bloodworm or smaller feeder fish , highly predatory , they need to be constantly fed .
sp fire and ice is a sub-tropical channa for long term do monitor your tank temperature ,i presumed your tank has been cycled ?
I've tried dropping in frozen bloodworms but these remaining 4 refuse to touch them. They love feeder shrimps though, but weirdly enough, the ones that I dropped in all died in 30mins.
Well, the filter's been in there for about 5 weeks now. I have a 2ft x 1ft tank.
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Originally Posted by jvlz
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