Thanks Stu for the suggestions, they are taking frozen BBS pretty well now and I am being very careful with the water quality. I think they are big enough to take the bloodworms based on what I saw with the live whiteworms yesterday.
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Thanks Pat. Hope yours also get well soon. IMO they are difficult to keep than the wild discus. You can also feed blackworms (cut them into smaller pieces) soaked in garlic to help improve their immunity. I used do that regularly in their initial period. I did see you thread in Finarama. There they are experts who should be able to guide you better :).
I did not give any medication to them than keeping them in very low pH when i got them at first. If you are able to cross the first month without any issues things become much easier. I used alder cones, sera peat and almond leaves in pure RO water to bring the pH down to 4 - 4.5. Now as they have become adults i slowly brought them back to pH of 6.
Some of mine would eat fine and then days later stop eating and die. I think they had some kind of internal issue.
Well, I am not convinced there is actually anything wrong at this point however I am watching them very careful. I am also preparing their next WC with peat filtered water to see if I can ease the ph down a bit at a time. Also I am seeing full bellies on several of them so that is a step in the right direction. :)
So far so good. Day five, no losses and all seem happy, active and interested in food. I offer a variety of foods, bloodworms, live whiteworms, munched earthworm, arctic cyclops, BBS and thinly sliced FDBWs. I changed my water prep a bit and am peat filtering my RO water with no added tap. These guys are getting about a 60% daily WC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr_FZUbhSkA
Pat they are looking great!
Pat, haven't had chance to read through the thread in full so this may already be covered and/or dealt with.
I've found with Altums that the first few days and weeks are critical in acclimating them. The good news is you have smaller fish, ime/o they are easier to acclimate. Not sure how long the supplier had them in their tanks for, but I will usually want them to have been there for some weeks.
Either way my method is fairly simple, I use nigh on neat RO water (conductivity of around 50 to 75 only, TDS approx. 25 - 35). If poss I use some catappa leaves and I let the pH settle where it will (usually quite low ;)). If they have tatty fins either from shipping or handling then I will use some acriflavin on them but not salt at this stage. I keep temps nice and warm for them, minimum 82f during this time.
As for food I've found live brineshrimp to be good to get them going. I have little doubt they prefer live food, but I've found it fairly easy to get them onto freeze dried stuff, particularly black worms. Same applies to good quality flake food too. Once settled they will eat most things.
They are delicate at first and ime don't tolerate shipping too well, but once acclimated they are pretty hardy. Worth the effort and then some in my view :) - probably my all time favourite fish.
Hi Paul, thanks for chiming in and am doing things pretty much as you describe. Water is pure RO ATM but I am doing 60% or better daily WCs. Temp is about 83 and ph in the mid 6s I believe and TDS is 25. Also doing daily tank wipe downs to remove any bio-film. Pretty much treating them like discus fry.
They just started to eat well and had nice full bellies yesterday. I'm offering a variety of foods and found they are very attracted to live foods. I have catappa leaves clipped to the side of the tank and rooibos tea in the water. I am keeping the light somewhat dim as seems like brighter lights makes them run for cover.
I have not used anything on them except good, clean water. I do have acriflavin on hand. I have noticed them rubbing etc so may need to tend to that shortly.
I have had them six days now and the fins seem to have cleared up and they are getting more lively so I feel that I am on the right tract. However I have never kept them and if you see something going awry please do say something as you are way more knowledgeable here then I.
Just keep an eye on the rubbing for now, if it starts to get worse it may well require action, if it improves then no worries :) I'd probably ease off the water change volume too (30% should be fine), you want the pH to drop some for now. I just add a small amount of re-min salts to my RO water and allow the pH to fall. A pH of 5 isn't too low!! As long as the filter is working you should be good.
Well darn, found one dead this morning :( I was sort of expecting this but it caught me off guard this morning.
Hi pat do you know if john has anymore altum angelfish?