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Posts: 3
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Registered: Jul 2003

posted 07-24-2003 10:48 PM            

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first i will tell you about our tank oldest to youngest fish, we have a green terror, red bellied oscar, red devil, and a flower horn. we also have algea eaters and a small fish from the catfish family, he's a hider/bottom feeder. They are all in a 120gallon tank good filtration and air stones. thier hiding spaces consist of a huge driftwood pice, red slate pieces and a few other rocks.Despite the fact that we change the water 25%usually every 2-3 weeks we still have a problem with algea and ammonia and they get white patches every once in a while that goes away with meds.We also have no luck with oscars they seem more suseptible and are quick to go without notice it seems,our only surviving oscar is the red belly who isnt growing as quickly as the red devil and flower horn who are younger.Now that i have given a little background to our tank i'll get on with my green terror.He is the oldest and the biggest and the dominant fish in the tank,His colors vibrant and didnt scare at all. Although he didnt attack the other fish, he liked to chase them around the tank non stop.This all changed about a week and a half ago..We first noticed that the red devil started chasing him around and nipping at him and cornering him at every chance, then we noticed him cowering in corners. 1 in particular the mid/upper right hand corner near an airstone and a filter tube and a thermometer. at first we didnt think of a water problem because we change it often and he wasnt skimming the top. But then he wasnt coming for food, and if he did just one or two pellets and staying in the same corner in the same position for hours at a time looking into the back glass scenery
so a week ago i took a water sample to my local fish store for them to test they said we had an ammonia problem and the ph was off.They told us to get crushed coral for ph and do a 50% water change for ammonia problem.This water sample was done a few hours after a 25% water change.So when i got home i did another 50% water change and washed and added the coral, so within 1 day we did a 75%total water change and added the coral.Well he didnt stop acting funny at all, still bullied by the red devil and flower horn and staying in his corner avoiding food so the next day i tested my water, the levels seemed not to change which is impossible, so i went back to the fish shop and had them test it, they said i has a trace of ammonia left and it didnt need to be changed for another 2 weeks.So now my water is fine, but he isnt. he is still cowering and bieng bullied a bit, still avoiding food and now it looks like his scales are dissapearing, but there are no scrapes or sores, no white patches or spots just bare skin underneath it looks like.Another thing is his fins are looking tattered allthough i think that is from the red devil picking on him.. he actually bites and nips him. I dont know what is wrong with him he went from king of the tank to going into hiding. My other fish are fine, ,chace eachother and are pigs, they know what thier food bottle looks like through the tank lol
even my oscar who is usually passive and the first to show signs of something wrong with the tank is doing fine growing slower then the other two but in good shape. His behavior is starting to scare me. I'm concidering putting a partition in the tank to seperate him from the others but i dont know if that would make the situation worse or better once i reintroduce him.
Sorry for the long post but i figured the more details i gave the easier it might be to help. I'm at a loss of what to do next so if anyone has a clue as to whats going n with my green terror i would appreciate it greatly!
BTW i dont use any chemicals on or near the tank and the lighting time is balanced and the temp ranges between 78-80 depending on day/night.

Thanks again for any help

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Member

Posts: 251
From:
Registered: Jan 2003

posted 07-25-2003 02:02 AM         

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You've answered your Green Terror problem, the Red Devil. I'm surprised he hasn't started in on the Oscar. I can't say for sure since I've never had a Flowerhorn but from what I've read I would expect that the Flowerhorn when it gets larger will probably settle your Red Devil down. You may or may not be doing this on your water changes. When you siphon your water, siphon from the bottom of the tank to remove waste and food particles.

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Posts: 3
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Registered: Jul 2003

posted 07-25-2003 06:26 AM            

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yeah when we clean teh tank we siphon the bottom.. it seems when the temp is around 76 degrees in the tank the red devil is less aggresive and hen its warmer he becomes the dominator. short of giving the tank its own ac i dunno how to cool it down anymore then 78 bieng as its summer hopefully that is the problem just the red devil dominating and not a sickness. I can live with seasonal dominators green terror in th winter red devil in the summer and if the devil gets to mean i will isolate him instead of the terror.Not fair to put the victim in timeout My only concern is the fact that my terror's personality did a 180 seemingly over night but maybe the stress of the amonia level mixed with the devil picking on him is just making it for a longer recovering period :crosses fingers: tell me what ya think

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Posts: 251
From:
Registered: Jan 2003

posted 07-27-2003 10:29 PM         

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I believe the only problem you have with the Green Terror is it being bullied. The main concern is the Amonia, but you seem to have that resolved. I wouldn't worry so much about the PH unless it is below 6.5. REMEMBER for a fixed level of Amonia it becomes more toxic the more alkaline the water becomes. The only time I become concerned about PH is the shock factor in adding new fish or when doing a water change and I use a PH buffer for that. If the PH starts to get extremely acid (below 6.5) I do small 10% water changes every couple of days until it gets close to neutral. You want to raise the PH gradually to keep your fish from going into shock.

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