Building up the immunity system of a fish.

[madmisha]

Greetings to all you fine ladies and gentlemen of Simply Discus,especially the keepers of the discus brought from the wilds
I was hopping to get your advice on tackling the biggest issue with wild altums,according to my own experience at least.....and while atums sure are not discus,there are many similarities,and im hopping to learn and get new viewpoints from your stories and tips

my first experience with those fish was pretty tragic,i've got a batch of 8 fine altums of different sizes,dripped them for 2 hours into a premade,precycled tank.....and was very happy,they were all standing straight,started eating frozen food by the second day,not all,but still.....and were acting great.
until the fourth day,on which by morning i found ALL my altums shredded,fins torn to bits,some dead,others struggling to breath and swimming against the filter outlet....the water parameters havent changed,amonia and nitrite remained at 0 levels....within 3 more days,i've had a lone surviving youngster,who by the way,is still alive-tho is quite....ugly...as his fins healed in weird zigzags...
...so what happened to my altums?
those fish apparently come from places in the wild where the PH value can go as little as 3.8-4......and while they are pretty hardy,and can be acclimated to a ph such as 6.2 pretty quickly (which was what i had in my tank),they have nearly no immunity system-as there's barely any active bacteria living in those highly acidic conditions.
the water in the tank i've prepared was mostly RO,but had some tap water mixed in,aswell as filter media from an active discus and angelfish planted tank.
so what probably happened was that germs that came with the media and tap water got my altums on the first they in the tank....had its incubation time,and as soon as it was over,kaboom,all of my angels got torn to bits.....leaving me with quite a big heartache and a dent in my wallet.


well,now im about to get another batch of altums over within the next few weeks....and this time im gonna do my best to be more careful.
the system is going to be using 100% RO water with added minirals to have a slight KH to make things more stable.
And im going to attach a UV-C sterilizer to the canister filter.

but,what next? how do i begin to build up their immune system without repeating the tragedy of my first altums? should i have antibiotics in my tank for preventive combat against any dormant bacteria that may come with them?


all tips and corrections are welcome

[Second Hand Pat]

Hi Michael,

The best start with altums is to get them from a trusted source. If they are handled bad in the catching/import/shipping process they can crash quickly. Once you have them, temp match the bag water to the tank then drop and plop. Just before they arrive you want a mature seeded filter in the tank. Tank water should have a ph below 7 and temp 82. Strain the water with rooibos tea http://www.amazon.com/Davidsons-Tea-...ds=rooibos+tea as an acclimation aid. Add several IALs if you have them. Keep the light low and adjust them to brighter light over time.

I assume these are WC?

Pat

[madmisha]

Hi Michael,

The best start with altums is to get them from a trusted source. If they are handled bad in the catching/import/shipping process they can crash quickly. Once you have them, temp match the bag water to the tank then drop and plop. Just before they arrive you want a mature seeded filter in the tank. Tank water should have a ph below 7 and temp 82. Strain the water with rooibos tea http://www.amazon.com/Davidsons-Tea-...ds=rooibos+tea as an acclimation aid. Add several IALs if you have them. Keep the light low and adjust them to brighter light over time.

I assume these are WC?

Pat

Yes Pat,they would be wild caught,and i thank you for the tips...sadly tho they do not touch my main question,about building up the immune system of wild caught altums....

[Second Hand Pat]

Yes Pat,they would be wild caught,and i thank you for the tips...sadly tho they do not touch my main question,about building up the immune system of wild caught altums....

Michael, you need to get past the first month first. Remember that these fish come from almost sterile water. I would suggest your early goals are to get them alive and eating well past the acclimation period. What are your long term goals?
Pat

[madmisha]

Michael, you need to get past the first month first. Remember that these fish come from almost sterile water. I would suggest your early goals are to get them alive and eating well past the acclimation period. What are your long term goals?
Pat

I do know that they come from water that clean,which is what worries me most,much more then parameters such as PH .....my long term goals are keeping them with discus and geophagus in a 180gal tank.

[Second Hand Pat]

Michael, I would suggest not mixing discus in this 180. The discus will not be able to compete with either the altums or geophagus for food. This is a video of my altums from the other night. Note how quick they are.

[madmisha]

Michael, I would suggest not mixing discus in this 180. The discus will not be able to compete with either the altums or geophagus for food. This is a video of my altums from the other night. Note how quick they are.

they are gorgeous pat,are they tank bred?
and well,while im aware they are very quick compared to discus......im certain theres going to be plenty of food for everyone,aswell as enough filtration to keep the tank clean.

[Second Hand Pat]

These are wild Michael, coming to six months of age.
Pat

[madmisha]

These are wild Michael, coming to six months of age.
Pat

really stunning
would you be so kind as to share some of the story of their acclimatization,preventive meds and the conditions you keep them in?

[Second Hand Pat]

really stunning
would you be so kind as to share some of the story of their acclimatization,preventive meds and the conditions you keep them in?

Thanks Michael, here is my growout thread on these guys http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...-Altums-Take-2 which covers everything I am doing with them and has videos on their condition and growth. You will see I have not used meds on them.
Pat