Mono ~ Silver Moony

Hi

I need major help
We have a community tank that is stable and running for the past 2 years or so not alot of fish die our fish are very healthy and disease free.
Heres my issue we had a mono about a year ago it grew HUGE then i was smart enough to feed it tubeflex worms cause a pet shop said they good for the fish but the fish ate like a whole piece and it expanded in its stomach and it got bladder infection not soon after that it died. My gf was devastated cause she loved the fish so she tried over and over. I think we bought 5 or 6 monos since that time and everytime its the same thing 2 days and they die. She tried taking one over from marine and it worked for one 1 week but then it died. We spoke to alot of pet shops and the one guy said nooooooo its the parrots thats killing them. Our parrots were big so we gave them away for 2 monos to the same pet shop and guess what happened. The monos were healthy when they got in the tank. They looked really healthy but 2 days later both of them died. They eat well, then 2 days they die. Everytime they were bought from the same place and 2 days later they die. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE just give me some advice on how to get them to stay alive. My community tank has a fire eel thats about 2 years old and i mean if there was water issues he will be the first to go please help thx

 

Hey Rock...
Firstly Natal Moony's - Monodactylus argentues is a Black listed species.... so lets just asume you have M.sebea to keep this nice and legal....

Mono's are brackish species and dont do well under purely fresh water conditions,especialy as they grow larger(needs full or almost full marine conditions then..)... Transfering one from a brackish environment to a purely fresh environment without slowly adjusting the SG of the water can cause death...
Could this be the problem?

 

Hi Rcokfordgun,

I need more information about you aquarium before I can make a better diagnosis. I have copied part of my discus diagnosis sheet below and I want to ask you to copy and paste this into a reply and to fill in as much of the information as possible, then I can try to help.

Kind regards,

Dirk

Your aquarium (Size; what do you have in the aquarium such as logs, stones; plants; gravel; fertilizer use; CO2? etc.):
Your filtration (Type and size of filter, what is in your filter, liters per hour)
Aquarium hygiene: (how do you clean your aquarium and your filter, how often do you clean your filter, when last did you clean your filter, when last did you clean your gravel?)
How many fishes do you have in your tank (discus, their size and other fishes):
When did you last buy any new fishes and from where were they bought?:
Which food are you feeding and how often do you feed?
Water changes? How often, how much, what is the temperature of the water you use for water changes, what is the source of the water (tapwater, well water, borehole water, river water) :
Do you prepare your water for water changes? Reverse osmosis, peat filtration, do you add peat extract?:
Water description (smell and colour):
Water parameters in your aquarium
Temperature of the water:
General hardness (GH):
Carbonate hardness (KH):
Nitrite (No2-):
Nitrate (No3-):
pH-value and how did you measure your pH:

 

I'm with azurekoi on this one - they need brackish to do well over any period of time. Some people say that they're 'tolerant' of freshwater, but in reality they will only survive once there is salt in the tank. I've kept 2 species of mono over the years, not to mentioned worked with the other species at the LFS, and none of them did well without the addition of salt to the tank. Results varied, but the longest I've seen monos without salt is 3 months maximum. The African mono, M. sebae, tends to do better, with some people keeping them in harder, alkaline water, in which case specimens have grown to full size and lasted a few years. Regardless, I believe that a brackish or marine tank would suit them much better, not to mention that the correct environment will help prevent disease in the fish.

 

Hi Azurekoi and Tim,

I agree about the salinity issue here and that is why I am asking the questions that I have, i.e. where he is based, water changes and water parameters if he knows them.

There is however another aspect and that is that tubifex can carry harmful bacteria and if gulped down in the way the original fish has, and if it got bloat in the way it has, then I would think that this tank is infected with Aeromonas or similar bacteria which cause bloat specifically. However, I also need to know if tubifex worms are still being fed and what the rest of the diet is, as this would also influence matters. Lastly, Aeromonas can infect a tank over a longer period and if we hear here of repeated deaths from the same symptoms then this is likely to be what I think is going on here. This is also influenced by the salinity though.

For these reasons, I still need Rockfordgun to fill in the diagnosis sheet please.

Kind regards,

Dirk