Is there something wrong with my apisto?

[Don90]

Is there something wrong with my apisto? I saw it hiding behind my lava rock with black colouration.

After I put my finger at the glass tank, he went to hide in a cave.....still black...

I don't know what's wrong with him. I just did a WC 2 days ago.....

[genes]

Any visible injury? Sunken belly? Perhaps something in the tank stressed him out.

[Don90]

hmm..can't think of anything.

He isn't injured, the other inhabitants seem okay to me. The emperor tetras are more territorial today.

and BTW, he's still in the cave. He's been like that since this morning. Is he gonna die soon?

[trident]

Don,
Better check on the apisto, look out for sunken or swollen belly, cloudy eyes......
could be a number of reasons that is causing it. Water parameter ok? Any large change of water recently?

[Don90]

I did a 30% change today.

Afraid of ammonia spike.

[genes]

Add some anti-stress coat if you have. Or ketapang leaves in your tank.

[trident]

you add anti-chlorine, anti-chloramine?

[Don90]

Would blackwater help?

and yes I always use anti chlorine/chloramine.

[genes]

blackwater will do if you do not have ketapang leaves.

[leeruisheng]

This is from my experience. I used to have apistos infected with internal bacteria turning darked and always lying down on the substrate.

[Don90]

OMG..... he died.....

I saw a reddish patch at his right side just now...

Such a great loss for me....he was such a nice specimen.... even had a nice "triple red" pattern on his left pelvic fin....

I suspect it has something got to do with the bloodworms I gave him...

[Zenislev]

Could be internal parasites, these kinda cases are hard to cure. Some parasites can be from the live food you fed them with.

[genes]

Sorry to hear that, if indeed its internal parasites, you are not the first to experience this. I have lost many due to internal parasites as well, never been successful in treating them. You fed him live bloodworms? You have to wash them or rinse them throughly if you are going to feed them as live food. These worms, similiar to tubifex may contain parasites.

[Don90]

Haha, I fed him frozen bloodworms.

I'm still wondering how he got that reddish bruise...

[genes]

Some other inhabitants attacked him maybe. I usually don't feed frozen bloodworms to my apistos unless i run out of frozen brine shrimps. Frozen bloodworms tend to give my apistos sunken belly.

[illumnae]

frozen bloodworm's been ok for me so far, thankfully. i think the reddish bruise might indicate him being on the worse end of a fight with a tankmate?

[Don90]

Hmm....I can't think of any fish in the tank that is capable of wounding him so badly..

I have 1 oto. 3 emperor tetras, 2 ruby tetras, 1 galaxy rasbora..

Could it be that he accidentally cut himself with the fishing line used to tie mosses? or maybe the sharp edges of lava rocks?

[trident]

Don,
My condolences for your loss.
You can safely rule out the tank mates, who would have heard of a galaxy rasbora or a tetra killing a apisto?
Likely a internal parasite, like genes said, hard to cure.

[doppelbanddwarf]

I've bad experiences feeding bloodworms, tubifex or even daphnia. Every time I feed them to my Apistogrammas they get internal parasites and slowly waste away. Now the only live food I feed is live bbs.

[wks]

Hi Don90, sorry to hear about your loss. Lim is right, never feed apistos with frozen/ live bloodworm, I lost quite a few pairs through that too. Now I normally feed the fish with Tetra bits.