Sick Nigripinnis

[GlennC]

Hi all

My tank is a Juwel three footer, overstocked with Calvus pair (breeding), Brevis pair (breeding), electric yellow pair (female currently holding), cuckoo pair, three nigripinnis (two males and one female), four juvenile transcriptus, one bumble bee goby, five big mystery snails, 10 ramshorn snails, and about 40 1cm Calvus and 30 1cm brevis fry.

I haven't measured the pH, but the GH is about 26 and the KH about 13. The temperature is about 25-26. The internal filter is pretty good, but I also aerate the water and run a sponge filter. I feed NLS growth and live wrigglers. I do 15% water changes every week.

The tank has lots of holey rock and other limestone - there's heaps of places to hide, but the Nigripinnis do get hassled a bit by the other fish - but rarely do they get a frayed fin or any other physical damage. The Nigripinnis only got their full colours about two months ago.

All the fish are fine, except for one male Nigripinnis. It hangs vertically upside down against the filter and moves backwards and forwards. There are no visual signs of disease, but the fish breathes hard with it's throat bloated. I initially thought it might have gotten an air bubble stuck in its throat. It's been like this for the past two weeks, off and on, but mostly on, and sometimes behaves absolutely normal and does eat.

All my other fish are fine, including the Calvus fry - no signs of disease or in fact distress there.

The other problem is that my ramshown snails die. Do mystery snails kill them?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Glenn

[mattrox]

I'd be upping the pwc's to 25%.

I would have thought that Nigripinnis would need more swimming room to feel comfortable.....

[GlennC]

Yeah, I'm sure the Nigripinnis would like a larger tank, but they are doing fine otherwise. I actually had Leptosoma, but chose to stock Nigripinnis because they apparently "hang" around the rocks. And, they really do do that. They certainly compete with the Julidochromis for manourvering at odd angles and holding their position mid water.

I will look at increasing the pwc. I rarely have any problems with disease or sickness of any kind so I have always stuck with 15% to be the conditions stable.

I'd be upping the pwc's to 25%.

I would have thought that Nigripinnis would need more swimming room to feel comfortable.....

[tootie]

Hi Glenn,

Are you sure that it's not behaving normally for nigrippines - I know mine often hang upside down and look 'dead' at times and next thing they are swimming around and eating. They don't stop eating though - is yours eating?

It may be stress from other fish chasing him - they are quite timid.

If things have been working with the water changes you do - personally I wouldn't change it. Nigrippines, in fact, most of the fish you have in there all like small water changes.

I know that when I've done bigger water changes I've lost malasa and gold comps.

Good luck with it.

Cheers,

Shirley

[JPM1976]

Are you sure by the bloated throat, the Nigripinnis isn't holding eggs or fry?? Even though u did state it's suppose to be a male?

[GlennC]

Hi Shirley and thanks all for your help.

Last night the fish looked absolutely normally - beautiful colour, reasonable stomach shape etc.

Yeah, it's definitely a male as both my males are much larger than the one female I have. Also, the two males have awesome blue lines (especially when viewed with a torch at night) - the female has some slight blue but not much.

I intially thought the behaviour might be cause the fish was holding, but sometimes the throat is bloated, but at other times not. Also, it looks sort of like the fish is trying to swim downwards - as if maybe it has a swim bladder problem that is making it bouyant or that it has an air bubble trapped in it's throat. Th Nigrippinnis do like to take food from the surface and do splash around a bit and so maybe this one just doesn't know how to release the air?

I also wonder if it might not be some kind of mating ritual to induce the female to breed?

Cheers

Glenn