Abei not eating normally
Forum rules
Read this before posting!!
Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.
1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.
2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.
3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)
4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.
5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.
We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.
While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.
Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
Read this before posting!!
Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.
1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.
2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.
3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)
4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.
5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.
We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.
While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.
Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
-
Pufferpunk
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Some call it a product of a mis-spent youth, I call it Rock n Roll ! 
I did a smaller change last night about 30% I didn’t want to stress him I have done another 30% this morning and will do a 50% later tonight. I have also reduced his temperature to 25 as the library says 26 as a max and it was on 27.
As expected nitrates reading has dropped to 20ppm.
However he is still lethargic and rests on the bottom of the tank.
Tap water has no nitrate, I use API Stress Coat, in the 125-litre tank I add 40ml per 50% change, the recommended on the bottle is 5ml/10us gallons, I fill directly from the cold tap.
I drain the water then go around with a powered cleaner to get any rubbish.
The tank is a Jewel Rio 125, standard pump is 600 lph and it also has a Fluval 4 plus filter that is 1000 lph both have bubble nozzles.
The tank was not new it contained a range of community fish when I got it. I cleaned the tank thoroughly with a sponge and tap water.
I left the fish in the tank with the pumps and decoration until I moved them to another tank 12 days later.
The jewel pump was the original and I immediately changed the nitrate filter, dumped the carbon filter and replaced with a normal one; the remaining filters were washed in tank water, one when I got the tank and the other a week later. The Fluval had been running as a spare in another tank for two weeks with one new filter and one old prior to fitting so it had time to seed. I change the white floss filters on both pumps weekly.
The water readings were checked and there was no trace of ammonia or nitrite prior to the fish being removed and the Abei added. I check the readings weekly with an API master test kit and have never seen any ammonia or nitrite. The nitrates do get up to 30 ppm prior to a water change but normally drop after.
Decoration consists of five pieces of slate, two pieces of bogwood and a large fake mangrove root. Plants are dwarf swords and long grasses I cant remember their name, there is six of each.
Substrate is Tetra plant complete as a base with a covering of approximately 25mm with sand on the top ranging from 10 – 30mm.
Lighting is by twin T8 tubes, one is a Jewel Daylight bulb and the other is an Aqua-Glo bulb.
I feed thawed frozen bloodworms, one cube once per week. Thawed frozen uncooked prawn cut in to small pieces to fit the empty holes in the bloodworm tray, so 16mm size approx. once per week. I feed 2-3 live Snails either pond or red ramshorn three times per week. Every two weeks I also buy a shell on uncooked prawn that I dangle in the tank for a minute or so and make him fight for it.
I can’t think of anything else, hopefully there is something I have done that can be corrected.
As expected nitrates reading has dropped to 20ppm.
However he is still lethargic and rests on the bottom of the tank.
Tap water has no nitrate, I use API Stress Coat, in the 125-litre tank I add 40ml per 50% change, the recommended on the bottle is 5ml/10us gallons, I fill directly from the cold tap.
I drain the water then go around with a powered cleaner to get any rubbish.
The tank is a Jewel Rio 125, standard pump is 600 lph and it also has a Fluval 4 plus filter that is 1000 lph both have bubble nozzles.
The tank was not new it contained a range of community fish when I got it. I cleaned the tank thoroughly with a sponge and tap water.
I left the fish in the tank with the pumps and decoration until I moved them to another tank 12 days later.
The jewel pump was the original and I immediately changed the nitrate filter, dumped the carbon filter and replaced with a normal one; the remaining filters were washed in tank water, one when I got the tank and the other a week later. The Fluval had been running as a spare in another tank for two weeks with one new filter and one old prior to fitting so it had time to seed. I change the white floss filters on both pumps weekly.
The water readings were checked and there was no trace of ammonia or nitrite prior to the fish being removed and the Abei added. I check the readings weekly with an API master test kit and have never seen any ammonia or nitrite. The nitrates do get up to 30 ppm prior to a water change but normally drop after.
Decoration consists of five pieces of slate, two pieces of bogwood and a large fake mangrove root. Plants are dwarf swords and long grasses I cant remember their name, there is six of each.
Substrate is Tetra plant complete as a base with a covering of approximately 25mm with sand on the top ranging from 10 – 30mm.
Lighting is by twin T8 tubes, one is a Jewel Daylight bulb and the other is an Aqua-Glo bulb.
I feed thawed frozen bloodworms, one cube once per week. Thawed frozen uncooked prawn cut in to small pieces to fit the empty holes in the bloodworm tray, so 16mm size approx. once per week. I feed 2-3 live Snails either pond or red ramshorn three times per week. Every two weeks I also buy a shell on uncooked prawn that I dangle in the tank for a minute or so and make him fight for it.
I can’t think of anything else, hopefully there is something I have done that can be corrected.
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Hilly
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Just an idea. The fake root, is it one of the hollow ones that fill with water to weigh em down. Something nasty could be festering in there. Might be worth taking it out and seeing if there's anything going on in it.
Be prepared to gag. It stinks to high heaven when you pour the water out, do it outside it'll stink whatever room you're in up.
Be prepared to gag. It stinks to high heaven when you pour the water out, do it outside it'll stink whatever room you're in up.
Hilly
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manutius
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Good shout Hilly I was gonna suggest the same. We had one in our cold water tank and it stank sooooo bad cos a baby fish got stuck in it and diedHilly wrote:Just an idea. The fake root, is it one of the hollow ones that fill with water to weigh em down. Something nasty could be festering in there. Might be worth taking it out and seeing if there's anything going on in it.
Be prepared to gag. It stinks to high heaven when you pour the water out, do it outside it'll stink whatever room you're in up.
Will look at next change, root is hollow but I filled it with stones to stop the stink.Hilly wrote:Just an idea. The fake root, is it one of the hollow ones that fill with water to weigh em down. Something nasty could be festering in there. Might be worth taking it out and seeing if there's anything going on in it.
Be prepared to gag. It stinks to high heaven when you pour the water out, do it outside it'll stink whatever room you're in up.
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Pufferpunk
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T niphobles - Location (country): USA, Greenville, SC
- Location: Greenville, SC
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Is that how you clean the substrate? Are you cleaning it thoroughly? I know BM asked about this but I thought you said you were.I drain the water then go around with a powered cleaner to get any rubbish.
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
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Hilly
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Myaj gave me the idea from another post when she said they can turn into a nitrate bomb. I had one in my Abei tank but removed it, I took it out every week and emptied the water out and it stank so bad it nearly made me chuck every time. I decided it was too big for the tank as the top of it was only just under water level so i've put it in the Oscar tank at the moment but i'm thinking of getting rid of it out of there, it still smells bad and there's nothing trapped inside it.Manutius wrote:Good shout Hilly I was gonna suggest the same. We had one in our cold water tank and it stank sooooo bad cos a baby fish got stuck in it and died
Hilly
The cleaner is mains powered and is called a "power gravel cleaner", it seems to do a good job!Pufferpunk wrote:Is that how you clean the substrate? Are you cleaning it thoroughly? I know BM asked about this but I thought you said you were.I drain the water then go around with a powered cleaner to get any rubbish.
I have just removed the fake root, changed the tank around and done a 50% water change.
Given a good go with my cleaner and a stir.
I will post the test results for the water in an hour or so when everything has settled.
He did get a bit dark when I did the change, but has lightened since.
Everything is crossed!!!
Given a good go with my cleaner and a stir.
I will post the test results for the water in an hour or so when everything has settled.
He did get a bit dark when I did the change, but has lightened since.
Everything is crossed!!!
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Pufferpunk
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T miurus
A modestus
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C valentini
C coranata
C papuan
C lorteti
DPs
suvattii
burrfish
T niphobles - Location (country): USA, Greenville, SC
- Location: Greenville, SC
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A little, not good, but not that bad either.Pufferpunk wrote:Did it smell?
Water tested at 10ppm nitrate and ph 7.8 after two 30 % changes and a 50%
I have rechecked my tap water and that is giving 10ppm, my last check was two weeks ago and it was zero, any ideas on why the increase.
However he is still sitting on the bottom of the tank.