Re: My fish are dieing, but only the apistos

[NaturalDTP@aol.com]

In a message dated 05/10/00 00:16:25 GMT Daylight Time, emartina@uiuc.edu 
writes:

> I have been buying
>  apistos over the last month and I have had 5 cacatuoides, 2 blue rams
>  (long finned), and 2 agassizi have died on me.

There are several reasons why these fish may be dying first;

1. IDMiamiBob's suggestion about frozen bloodworm and gorging sounds fair
2. If you don't have much water movement you can get dead spots where NH4 
builds up  (inside caves for example)
3. You don't mention what sex these fish were but 5 male Cacutoides in one 
tank is likely to end with 1 or 2 just because of aggression.
4. The weather loach could be stressing them just by being big, active and in 
the same area of the tank as the dwarfs
5. The most likely suggestion though (unfortunately for the industry) is the 
quality of the stock.  RANT BEGINS...long finned rams are notoriously weak 
fish, they have been overbred and are often raised in large fish farms under 
less than ideal conditions.  Are your Cacutoides or Aggies one of the 
intensively tank bred varieties (double reds or similar)? if so they may have 
the same problems as the Rams.

Here in the UK, cacutoides, rams and aggies are coming through from 
wholesalers and are very distant from any wild type, they are colourful (in a 
brash sort of way), big and only males.  i suspect someone in the far east is 
raising them using hormones which encourage colour and size but makes the 
fish sterile (I, and no-one I know have  ever bred Rams using one of these 
males).  The rams often die after a couple of months.

Alan W


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