Puzzling death of Rams and Banjo Catfish

As per this post, got these fish on the weekend:

http://www.tropicalaquarium.co.za/s...o-what-new-addition-did-you-get-lately/page99

5 x spotted headstanders
5 x tiny panda corys
3 x ram's
2 x banjo catfish

The mistery is two of the Ram's keeled over with no apparent sign of illness, and this morning the two Banjo's are also dead. I acclamatized them by the drip method into a quarantine tank. Water parametres are good. Temp 25, NH4 0.5, NO3 30, NO2 0, NH3 0.003, PH 7, KH 6, GH 10.

Went back to the store on Sunday. Their Banjo's are fine, but most of their Ram's are also dead.

The headstanders (which are sensitive) are doing great, so are the Pandas and one Ram also OK.

I'm puzzled???

 

Sorry for your loss if I may ask where did you buy the fishes from?

 

Rams per say, do travel very bad and the stock we get in the shops are mostly imported and very stressed out. Sorry for the loss.

 

Rams in this country are very dissapointing. Saying that, they are fish that require pristine conditions like discus.

 

Rams in general in SA get juiced with vitamins and all other enhancers.
When the fish settles into your tank the vitamins were off and they go into shock and die without any signs.

Not even if you take the at most care of them they will not last, unless it is proper Ram stock.

 

I've had 6-8 in the 2yrs I've been keeping fish and they all died suddenly! I have given up keeping them because of this which is really sad as they are beautiful fish with great parental skills and a pleasure to have in a tank.

 

Thank you for all the sympathy. Hate loosing fish. Quality of livestock is just down the drain these days.

Exotic in Boksburg.

Thank you for the info. How does the vitamin and enhancer dosing work/how is it done? Could one not wean fish off these additives slowly, and thereby get them used to normal conditions?

 

All the other fish doing great, remaining Ram is feeding... Weird?!

 

25C is very low for Rams. Blue Rams or Bolivian?

 

My RAMS are doing fine and my water is sitting at 24C.

 

Blue Rams. I do 25 c for the quarantine environment as higher temperatures generally cause more stress on the fish due to less oxygen capacity of the water. Also, should there be a rise in ammonia due to PH exceeding neutral, the higher temperature will amplify the spike further. Unfortuantely the LFS was not willing or able to tell me anything about their water parametres, not even temperature. It's a shame, and this is one of the better LFS's. Gonna start bringing my own testing equipment. LOL

They do like warmer water, but don't see how this will kill them. The remaining one is happy as larry. But I hear you, and may be part of the problem.

I saw this AM that one of the headstanders has very slight mouth fungus developing. I'm treating for that now. Very happy I have these fish in quarantine. I'm 100% done with the days of direct introduction into my tanks.

 

When I read threads like these I actually want to post a video of me shaking my head in frustration.
Rams are problematic yes, but they are also probably one of the most misunderstood and badly kept tropical fish around. No wonder the poor things rebel against captivity and die for little reason.
Im not adding on to what @Hawk already said - the facts have been well documented on here and other forums.
That saod - the best chance you have of being succesful with Rams is to be as close to their natural environment as possible-irrespective of the varieties available today being 100's of generations removed from the wild.
@iamdieter - you are right that heat lowers the oxygen in water-but heat also improves the fish's ability to deal with parasites. Its easier to aerate the water than to find means of dealing with parasites.
The other reason why I keep rams in as soft and acidic water as possible, is because the bacteria count, parasitic count etc at very low acidity is much much lower than water with a neutral ph.
Fish that originate from water which are very acidic generally do not handle bacterial/parasitic issues well-Rams being case in point. The come from some of the cleanest water in the world, only a few dissolved solids away from distilled water-with ph levels as low as 3.7 - temperatures 28-32°C.
If rams are to be kept -expose them to other living conditions at you own peril. And btw - for any attempted comment abt keeping them in hard water, ph 8 and temp 24....and saying that the ONE kept under those conditions survive perfectly happy....does not make that the preferred conditions.
Statistically its pointless basing assumptions and deductions on one or two variations from the general rule. Those variations does not disqualify common sense.

@iamdieter -apart from the rams, i cant say what caused these deaths. Too little info. But you mention mouth fungus and fungus usually is a secondary infection to a pre-existing issue. Maybe check water conditions for nitrites.

Rgds

Marco

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk

 

@iamdieter: Question did you maybe add something new to the tank recently? I had a similar experience were only my Black Phantom Tetra's died but all the other fish stay un-harmed. It turns out the super glue I was using for glueing the plants to my driftwood had something in it that they were sensitive too, so they all died but my other more sensitive fish remained un-harmed. Also take into account RAMS we get locally are for the most part terrible quality, they are pumped up with all kinds of vitamins and hormones so that they produce proper colours.

 

Water parameters were: Temp 25, NH4 0.5, NO3 30, NO2 0, NH3 0.003, PH 7, KH 6, GH 10.

So not perfect water but not bad either. The bacteria load makes sense. What gives me some rest, is the fact that most of the Ram's in the LFS were also dead the following day.

Nothing new in the tank. Is a rather bare quarantine tank.

I'm very interested to find out about the vitamin and hormone dosing. Understanding it will be the first step in avoiding fish subjected to it.

 

It is something problematic in the fish trade and is being used by fish breeders all over the world, it happens when the breeding stock is of low quality. So not wanting to make a loss they treat the fish with vitamins and hormones to brighten them up, at the expense of the fish who later die of this.