Loosing tropheus

[care4cats]

     Hi all,

          Looks like I will soon be wiped out.  This all started when I added a clarifier UV to my tank.  I know it doesn't make sense, but 
my trophies were doing fine before this.  Reason I added the clarifier was that my some fish were constantly eating something in the water column that was invisible to the eye.  The water was also a bit hazy. 
          Water cleared in about one week, followed by one fish loosing face color, stopped eating and died.  Now every other day I am loosing one. Down to 10 and one is hiding.  I don't believe it is bloat since no body swelling.  
          Anyway, don't know where to go from here.

    Best to all,

        Care4Cats

[Mastiffman/ Duramax7Man7]

Sorry to hear...

Turn off the UV Filter for sure. Have you checked the ammonia and nitrate levels?

[...]

That sucks...sorry to hear...was the filter mature & tank cycled? Hazy water sounds like ammonia...perhaps a spike or tank not fully cycled...do you have a master test kit to test your water parameters?

[care4cats]

Thanks danny and andrew.Was testing water parameters every day when water was hazy and everything was good.
Removed the UV, but lost another one today. Totally confused. Hard to believe that my first tropheus colony lasted ten years.

Care4Cats

[Mastiffman/ Duramax7Man7]

What are parameters now?

If they are high at all, there are a few things that you could do.

1. Rinse out Media from another tank right in the water of this one the BB will do the rest.
2. Got to a local fish store and ask them to rinse a healthy tanks media in a bag of water & do the above.
3. Get something called API Stress Zyme. It has Beneficial Bacteria in the bottle and should d the trick.

How long was it since you last cleaned the filters, siphoned the substrate and changed the water? The haziness can happen if you haven't done much of the above regularly. Or if you overfeed. I change 50% water every week, siphon substrate every 3-4 weeks.

Hope this helps and please post a photo of the dead one from today.

Thanks and very sorry hear.

[care4cats]

         
                   There are two possibilities I can think of as to why I am loosing trophies. One, I hate to admit, but I was used to feeding a much larger colony before I got these fish and I may have overfed them(Mastifman reminded me of that in his post) that could have caused the hazy water.    The only other that I can think of is that I bought the clarifier from my LFS and I know they have no problem taking fish from anyone who is willing and putting them directly into their tanks.  Wonder if the clarifier was something returned from another persons tank that had problems.
                  My parameters have always been perfect so I don't think that was a cause.  For today all 9 fish are alive and I am being extremely careful as to how I feed them.  Only feeding small amount every other day.

       Care4Cats

     PS If another one dies I will take a picture of it and post. 

[Mastiffman/ Duramax7Man7]

Glad to hear that you still have some left! Overfeeding them will definitely do that. But I
m not sure why you are not seeing any spikes in Ammonia as overfeeding can do that. Or build nitrates a lot faster than normal.

Hope it all works out. I would definitely make sure you keep the take clean. Are you doing water changes every week?

[care4cats]

I have 9 tropheus left in my 125 Gallon tank. I do water changes every week, but have cut down to one week 30 gallons following week 15 gallons etc. A little afraid of going back to my original water changes of 50 gallons a week.. Figure since I only have a few trophs. now that I should keep to less of water change.

Appreciate your help.
Care4Cats

PS As of today all are eating and active.

[Mastiffman/ Duramax7Man7]

Gotcha. Yeah 25% should be fine. Glad to hear the 9 are doing better.