nitram79

Hey all,

does anyone know what would cause my apisto to go from extremely healthy one day to sitting at the bottom of tank with his mouth stuck open. i also saw him the other day have a spasm attack and swim irratically around for a second and smashing the top of his head on the ground a couple of times. dont know if this is related. and also i accidently left the filter off on the day he started doing this. i use this filter to airate the water, but i have plants in my tank and all the other fish seems to be fine. dont know if this is related also. any ideas anyone?

aquarist48

Good morning Nitram. Is his mouth still stuck open now? Is there a way he could have a pebble stuck in his mouth?
Have you checked your readings for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH?
Best of luck for a full recovery.
Ken

nitram79

Hey aquarist,

yeah his mouth is still open. he sits just above the ground, doesnt sway around or anything. and his dorsal fin is kinda up. the water is ok, nitrates at 20, but this happened really suddenly. i had another male apisto die the day before, which i had only bought a week earlier. i hope i didnt contaminate may tank with anything from the new fish. i'm about to move him to another tank, hopefully this will help

aquarist48

Hello Nitram. I don't know what type of substrate you have. Did you check to see if anything is stuck in his mouth?
Ken

TedsTank

what is your Ph?...temp 76 +....i keep my dwarfs at 78 degrees F. Best to have almost pristine water conditions....established tank. Possible PH shock?....you get them from LFS?

Double check your water parameters, they prefer soft, acid water although the cockatoos are fairly adaptable.

If you lost 1 already, and this one is sick...somethings up in your tank conditions most likely. Are your other fish South American varieties? And most apistos dont have a long life span...did you get young ones? I know of no disease that just strikes appistos.
This is a tough one....happened so fast!!!!

nitram79

I checked his mouth, and theres nothing in there. i have 3 substrates lightly covering the tank. small white gravel shards, then some stoney gravel which is a bit bigger and some large black pebbles. The other one that died a couple of days ago was a young male. there was alot of commosion when i added him and a couple of others into my 3 footer, he may have been injured but he never really looked right anyway. Iv had the sick cacatuoides for a while now, maybe half a year or a bit less. the ph in the tank is pretty stable, its usually around 15 - 20.
i have 3 other little apisto girls "but not cacatoides" in the 3 footer, they all seem fine, also have 2 bolivian rams and 2 checkerboard cichlids plus heaps of others and all seem ok
iv put him in the other tank with his 2 girls, he's still in the same condition, he hasnt eaten at all today. his gill movement is quite heavy looking and constant. and his mouth is just stuck open. one of the other girls has kind of heavy gill movement plus constant lip movement, but she is behaving normal.
the guy at the lfs said apisto's get gill worms, but said his lips would but pouting as well

TedsTank

Sounds like possible murder too!!! Not too wise to put 2 same type male dwarfs together in the tank with females, one has to be a loser!!!....also a community tank....and it sounds a bit crowded.

If he has severe gill flukes ...you can see them when his gills close and will just barely show....they like little whitish leeches. Trouble is your other dwarf or any small cichlids can get them too now. If his mouth is stuck open how is he pushing water thru his gills?? If he isn't he is slowly drowning.

Sorry to say it but it doesn't sound like he will recover.

Edit...Heaps of others If you are new to apistos I strongly recommend that you slow down...Keep the Ram's going. Get a 20 gal long for breeding the Cockatoos...and wait til you get that down. All the Apisto species and dwarf cichlids have different personalities...from gentle to major aggressive....and females with babies can be absolute terrors in a crowded tank. Keep up the research and plan as you achieve success.

nitram79

I think he possibly caught something off the little male that died coz he really didnt look right from the begining., i'm deffinately going to sit back for a bit and wait for things to settle down. One of the females has really heavy gill movement going so i took the other one out and put her back into the 3 footer. am also treating both tanks to hopefully kill whats causing this.
oh yeah and he didnt make it. i didnt think he would either, that open mouth just was causing to much drama. his gills were moving quite heavily and if u looked in his mouth u could see some sorta internal lips moving, or maybe that was the gills from inside? anyways im gona sit back for a bit and wait and see what happens