Can anyonelp with diagnosis?

Hi guys and gals, as many of you already know, i started stocking my new 100 ltr setup with 4 rams all of them are still alive, but 1 of them has gained my attention of late, its not looking well, not as perky as the others and its looking a bit pale, as far as i can tell it is eating, but it stays on the bottom for extended periods of time, fins always tucked in most of the time its secluded or anti-social, and i knoticed a slight "kink" in the tail, when it is swimming around its always slowly almost like its an effort, i'm a bit worried... I don't have any pics but will try take some tomorrow, I don't tnink its the water as the other three are fine and are quite perky and generally showing signs of comfort, should i be worried that this one is sick and risking the health of the others?

Pics and or video to follow...
Thanks for any advice in advance

is it being picked on or chased? any nipped fins?

could be some sort of internal parasite? sunken stomach or stringy/white poo?

Hi i know you say "the water must be ok as the others are ok" but i would still deffo test it..countless fishkeepers i know have lost fish with that attitude, it can be very costly!!!!! test for Am,NO2,NO3 and PH. Also do you know where the rams came from? alot of far eastern bred ones are of very poor quality, i would always try to get euro bred rams.. Germany and Czech. Rep produce some stunners!!! Or even wilds if you can get them. what temp is the water? rams do prefer "a bit warmer" although this would unlikey cause the prob. sounds like stress, what else is in the tank? Have you added any shells or "rocks/wood" from another source apart from a LFS..... post up a pic would help.

@ Davey- No no picking on or bullying happening only the usual fin flaring and headbutting.

@ Maggy- The stumach seems fine, as far as i can tell it didn't look swollen or distended, as for the the droppings haven't really taken note of that to be honest...

@ Serratus- The water was tested at Seahorse where i bought the Rams from, I was advised that the perammeters were all normal but hardness was a bit high but within the allowed range which is why i went ahead with buying the fish, it had nothing to do with my "attitude" as you put it. Bill can attest that i took every precaution not to put the rams in any stressful situation as he was with me at the time, plus to bring the hardness of the water down a little more i have added peat pellets to the filter. The temp of the water hovers between 27 and 28 celcius as advised, there is driftwood in the tank and more is on the way, when acclimatising they were floated in the bag for a total of an hour, 20 minutes for temp, the bags were then opened and 10 - 20 % of the tank water was added every 15 minutes for 45 minutes, after that they were released into the tank, they are all still showing signs that they are happy except 1.
I'm pretty sure i have done nothing wrong.

As for pictures you can find them here...:
www.irishfishkeepers.com/index.php/fforu...-my-latest-creations

As it stands now, however, the update is: I tried searching for the little guy/girl this morning and there is no sign of her/him, i could only find 3 (the Happy ones)so unfortunately i can not get any pictures of her, I even tried seeing if he or she was floating on the surface, but nothing!
I will try looking for her/him when i get home this afternoon again
I hope she or he is OK I'm not even sure if it was the male or the female, my suspicions are it was the little female German Ram, (there are supposed to be 2 Germans and 2 German Blue's)in a 100ltr tank

I can definitely say the water parameters are spot on, all standard parameters, ammonia, nitrites, nitrates were zero on the API tests. Darren ran a full battery of tests and all was fine, as Ryan said, it was only based on validating the water parameters and some good advice that he went ahead and purchased the fish. The ph and carbonate hardness were towards the upper end of the required range for the rams but did not exceed the acceptable range by any means.

Thanks Bill, do you by any chance have any clues?

Hi Ryan,

The most obvious things I can think of is stress or parasites I think you can rule out stress given the condition of the fish when purchased and the way they were handled in the transfer to the tank. I have to say I would not expect to see a fish go downhill that rapidly with internal parasites and there are also usually signs that there is a problem. It could be a bacterial infection too. Clamped fins can be a sign of an external or gill parasite too. Sorry, no help in diagnosing it really. The best option would be to isolate the fish in a small container for closer observation and see if it yields any clues.

Cheers,

Bill.

Hmmm, will do Bill, as soon as i find the little houdini, its completely disappeared!

After rummaging through Google using the symtoms as keywords, I keep coming up with the general concensus coming back to poor genetics could this be that i was just unlucky enough to get a Ram with poor genetics that some how slipped through the cracks into my tank?

I mean a lot of reading material seams to suggest that Rams have notoriously been enhanced and inbred etc etc to the point of being rampant, don't get me wrong i am in no way saying this is an indication of seahorses stock quality but is it so hard to believe that this is just one of "those" fish? Any thoughts on this?

P.S I only just realised that this is in the "Marine - Water and Health Section" Could one of the mods move it to the freshwater equivalent

Has the water been tested since the fish were introduced?

Could be genetics Ryan but in this case I doubt it, Darren and the rest of the lads tend to be vary careful about what makes it into their tanks. Also, the fish were all swimming ok and showing no signs of ill health in the display tanks. I think if it were an issue with genetice, the fish would have appeared the same in the display tank. You saw yourself the care that was taken in choosing the fish with you and ensuring they were the fish you wanted.
I think the best option is close observation of the fish and if possible, post some high resolution pics of the fish taken at close range, should help with a diagnosis.

Also, I noticed the thread was in the marine section and forgot to change it earlier moved to the correct section now

@ Sean OC- The water was tested and the fish were introduced on Sunday, i doubt much has changed other then the Hardness being reduced slightly by the peat pellets i introduced (starting off with 6 pellets for the first week or so and retesting) as advised by Darren from Seahorse, I was under the impression the peat pellets lower the Hardness of the water gradually ad slowly, could it have lowered the hardness so drastically in 2-3 days?

@ Bill- you make a good point, and like i said i am in no way insinuating that its something Darren or Seahorse did, i just don't get it...As for the HD photo the best i can do is a photo taken by my iphone, that is of course if i can find the little guy, any way i'll check it out later when i get home, i'll update accordingly wish me luck

Were they the first fish to be introduced to the tank? If so you may have had a spike in something since adding the fish. A water change probably wouldn't be a bad idea.

Was the peat JBL Tormec activ? If so it is recommended to soak it in ro water for a day before use. I also wouldn't be using it without a ph test kit on hand.

Hi sorry if i came across as blunt i didnt mean "attitude" as in the normal sense, but Sean gets what i meant, please test the water again, pleae never "assume" all is ok, params can change very quicky and rams being senstive at the best of times it wouldnt need to change too much Hope it all works out anyway

Sean wrote:

Were they the first fish to be introduced to the tank? If so you may have had a spike in something since adding the fish. A water change probably wouldn't be a bad idea.

Was the peat JBL Tormec activ? If so it is recommended to soak it in ro water for a day before use. I also wouldn't be using it without a ph test kit on hand.

No the Tank was already an establish tank and had a family of convicts, (parents plus 100 or so fry) no water change was made either but it did get a topping up with 10 - 15 ltr treated water that had been treated with Easy life filter medium which is supposed to be a "preferred" product and is supposed to help with all kinds of issues (too many to list)so not sure if that was the issue, wouldn't the others be suffering from the same symptoms?

serratus wrote:

Hi sorry if i came across as blunt i didnt mean "attitude" as in the normal sense, but Sean gets what i meant, please test the water again, pleae never "assume" all is ok, params can change very quicky and rams being senstive at the best of times it wouldnt need to change too much Hope it all works out anyway

No worries mate, i guess i was a bit snippy too just really confused as to whats going on, I really did take every precaution, before diving in, i'm just glad the rest are doing fine. As for testing the water again will do so, as soon as my test kit gets to me, ordered a new API master test kit but it hasn't arrived yet, didn't think it would be needed so soon after the water already tested, any way i guess time will tell, will update accordingly

Ha cool know worries!!! It could be just one of those things... it does happen, but i would always rule out everything... hope it all works out mate

serratus wrote:

Ha cool know worries!!! It could be just one of those things... it does happen, but i would always rule out everything... hope it all works out mate

Cheers thanks

I was looking at the German Blue Rams the other day, and they generally looked like good stock as opposed to the usual rubbish we see in shops.
So, whilst you may get the odd runt within any batch, I wouldn't say that the stock is a crap line.

Intestinal worms or flukes or any other disease would make a Ram go downhill quickly if the stress of being moved added to the stress already there.
But one way to make a Ram go downhill even quicker is by adding medication without caution and care.

Captive Bred Rams have a much greater range of acceptable water chemistry than wild caught, but they still down like changes in water chemistry. That could have been the problem.

Rams are not really great fans of new water.....it should be mature but not manky.

One thing that I am concerned over is the point where Nitrates were quoted as zero.....zero nitrates is actually quite dangerous as well as being an indicator that the system is not mature enough for Rams.

If Nitrates are zero, then you need to make sure that things that are not normally measured are measured (and there is very few LFS that can do that).

I see from the link to a picture of the tank that you have a reasonably deep gravel layer......unless that layer is oxygenated then that is a cautious sign when nitrates are zero in view of the potential of producing hydrogen sulphide and then having a massive spurious ammonia spike.

More important tests of water quality for Rams is the RedOx and Conductivity if we wanted to say the water is 'perfect'.....but testing for them is just 'ticking the boxes' to calling water perfect: good water management will abrogate the need for testing these.

ian

It seems my little bundle of joy that went around moping and acting like the whole world was coming to an end has all of a sudden decided life is worth living again and is swimming around like she owns the place... See video below...




Uhm yeah the one doing the chasing is our little sick bird....

So people i guess that means we are back down to def con 1, still though the test kit should be here tomorrow so i'll be testing as soon as it gets here

Cool.

If it is feeding and eating, then you're 90% there.

ian

Yeah thanks Ian,

I've said it before (ask Bill) i'll say it again, I must be doing something right
Now it looks like the Rams are pairing up, just not the way i had hoped the male German blue seems to be bonding with the German Female and vise versa.

Well people it seems i am destined to burn in hell, i got home this afternoon to find one of my Rams missing... Again, after searching and re arranging the whole tank i still couldn't find it, then i noticed my jewel4 pumpset was not functioning as it should be, it was at this point where my heart sank and a cold sweat wafted over me, needless to say my worries came true when i opened the pump up to find the poor guy inside.

I am absolutely gutted, but it does leave the intended partner, well, partnerless, if any one near Leixlip/Lucan/Dublin (west) has a lonely male German Ram looking for a girlfriend and a new home please let me know.

Oh and yes the deathtrap has been done away with, please help (