Re: oh no!

[rytireefs@juno.com (Phillip J Ryti)]

These are some comments that have already been made:

 The fish (more often male, it seems) becomes slightly less active, and
less interested in food.  His mouth hangs open just a bit -all the
time.  Over the course of the next few days, his
mouth opens more and his breathing becomes more labored.  He may or may
not show an interest in food, but he rarely actually eats anything.

 Eventually, his mouth will hang wide open, and gills will be puffing.
By then, his body begins to swell and eventually he ends up with all of
the classic dropsy symptoms before dying altogether.  I've seen this
progression to run as quickly as a few days, and as long as a week or
week and a half.  I tried previously with no luck to treat this with
various medicines including Kanacin and others that have been
suggested.  I have not tried medication immediately upon the first
symptom, because it is hard to tell the exact onset.  Also, I have
found that many of the males that I have witnessed contracting this
disease seem to do so right after spawning.
 It is very strange to watch a female tending a clutch of viable eggs
while her male, who was displaying so nicely prior to the spawn is now
swelling

up and hanging about the tank listlessly.  For the record, I have seen
this in many apistos, including pandurini, nijsseni (ALWAYS happens to
my nijsseni on first or second spawning), cacatuoides, agasizzi,
breitbinden, and a few others.  I have seen less of it since I put many
of my more tolerant apistos (agasizzi, cacatuoides, pandurini, etc.) on
tap water only.  Don't know if this is a water chemistry thing, or a
water quality thing.  I tend to do more frequent and larger water
changes with only tap

because of my limited RO water supply.

Tom



>>Regarding the your case of "dropsy", is the male gaping at the mouth
or
>is there any heavy breathing. About a month ago I had an outbreak of
this
>with my apistos specifically with a female biteaniata and a few
nijsseni.

The symptoms sound very close to the disease that I was describing
regarding my pandurini in earlier mailings with subject "lockjaw".
I have seen this in numerous wild caught pandurinis, mostly males.  I
have a f1 nijsseni who is exhibiting this symptom now.  I keep many
other types of apistos under identical conditions, and even in the same
tank without losing any to this mysterious disease.

If you don't have a lot of buffering, the anaerobic bacteria that breaks 
down waste products will use oxygen, emit CO2, and I've been told, 
acidify the water.

After reading along the lines of the above email and discussing it with
another hobbyiest, I think that I might possible have an answer as to
WHY our fish are dying. Personally, I will use R.O. water about 50/50
mix to simulate the lower PH and softness that they usually require.
But thinking this thru a bit, the water that you are putting in the
tank has very low to possible no buffering capacity. As mentioned above
the anaerobic bacteria will break down waste and use up oxygen. My
guess is that when you drop the Ph of the water in such a way the
unstable ions will actually absorb the minerals from the fish. The lack
of oxygen no doubt begins to choke the life of the fish.  Next "lock
jaw insues and possible dropsy or something worse. At this point I have
found it useless to medicate the fish although I still have done so.
The three times that it happened to my nijsseni and a FEMALE bitaeniata
medication with Neomycin and with Salts on one occassion proved
futile.  I will say this that after about a week of medicating I gave
up. At this point I made a 50+% water change with tap water of 7PH. And
"magically", the tanks inhabitants came more to life.

As I recall my first try with apistos, I remember  watching all of the
die.  The water was checked for the norms ph 7, no ammonia, nitrite,
and nitrate. So I thought maybe just a bad batch of steindachneri. So
went back to the store bought a trio of norberti. Awesome fish both
females showing the cadmium yellow. Then over the next two days the
dropped one by one. Back to the store with my water to test it using
their kit.  again all looked find EXCEPT phosphate!!! Where could that
come from.  Test you local water and the phospheric acid we all use to
lower the PH All having been said, Hope that some portion of this makes
some sense,

Later,
Phillip Ryti
RYTIREEFS@juno.com