Topic: Sick Blue ram. HELP!

[african_demon]

  Hi, I have 2 blue rams (inc each) and one of the is losing color, hiding in the corners breading heavily, and not eating, they are with 8 neon tetras, 2 otocinclus and a Raphael catfish. This behavior has been going on for 3 days now. I just changed 40% of the water on Saturday and replaced the filter media, but no improvement so far. Then I decided to start treating with some AP antibacterial (formalin) just in case it was some gill flukes (because of the heavy breathing).

      The tank is a Marineland  Eclipse 6G with an extra internal filter and a large bubble stone. I have black gravel as a substrate (soon to be change to Eco complete Planted), a piece of driftwood, some java fern, moneywort and water sprite. Ph = 5.8, temp= 82, no ammonia nor nitrites, nitrates around 15. I also have some peat granules in the filter to add some tannins to the water.

   Any comments appreciated, I am kind of new to south Americans…
 

[Tim]

Blue rams are not the hardest fish to keep (speaking from experience). The water change seems like alot to do(40%), and changing the filter media at the same time may cause a ammonia spike. I would do either one or the other in the future, or better still 20% and then change another 20% a couple of days later.

Your pH is very acid too, I would have it around 7. This is most probably the cause of their distress. 

[african_demon]

Hey, tanks for the prompt reply. Regarding the water conditions, I look in several places and I found that this guys need to be in very acidic waters (some even suggest pH5) and very hot (around 86F), so I was just trying to emulate those conditions.

 He was doing just fine for almost a month since I got them. The massive water change was just in case that it was something polluting the water, besides I would say that most of the bacteria is in the biowheel and in the sponge on the internal filter.  Any thoughts?

[african_demon]

I am afraid to inform that the fish passed away last night. After I took it out of the aquarium and look at the gills I so a lot of small white cists, so I would assume that was the culprit, I am treating the tank with AP Fluke to avoid further damage.

[JC]

Aw that's too bad. Sorry I couldn't be much help with that I know next to nothing about how to care for rams.