mikev wrote:Congratulations! Nice looking fish, hope they make it.
It appears that you are doing things right, and creating good environment for them (and your tank looks good, 40 breeder is a great type of tank too) may help their survival. Filtration is good, so is the setup. Gravel would have been better than sand but this is relevant to their initial survival. pH=7 is fine when you don't know the exact parameters, but hillstreams generally do not care all that much and going with neutral is prudent. (I tend to go with slightly alkaline, 7.1, for more stable water). gH usually is more important than pH, fish does not really sense pH, but they do sense gH.
In fact the main factor in their survival is not your current care but their health as of now, you don't have full control over it. Initial losses do not look good, hopefully the rest will make it. Things to watch for : are any specimens skinny? (lost lots of weight): the fish on the bottom photo may be, or this may just be the angle. If this is a factor, deworm, this is a common issue. Is any fish looks weak (cannot move normally)? (looks healthy on the photos). Next: are they eating? They may not be enthusiastic about any food for a few days, but unless they start eating, they will not make it ... and as for food, I'd try offering them frozen foods (bloodworms and/or frozen shrimp or even cyclopeeze)... I've kept v.hainanensis and they liked bloodworms. They may take algae wafers later, but you want them to eat something now.
Good luck, and looking forward to more photos.
and -- if I may ask -- which country are you in? Should we be looking forward to them appearing in trade?
You are right that initial losses don't look good. When they came in one was already dead, two dying (and did die). We put them into a tank and gave them a food source but only one really actively looked for food. Since then they were quite active initially. I am so confused right now.
When I brought them home they went into a tank that I had water changed several times leading up to bringing them home. They seemed okay in there, but were not actively looking for food. So I rushed to get the 40 turned into a suitable habitat, and yesterday they were quite active. This morning they were breathing quite hard, so I went ahead and unplugged the heater to let the tank cool to home temp. Home temp is 74, but the tank only went two degrees down, to 76. I checked PH, it hasn't changed. But several are now dead, the others are pale and look like they may die soon.
What is frustrating is that the source claims no losses reported on their end. I've gone from us ordering 12, to having 9 to bring home(three dead upon arrival), 3 died soon after coming home, 3 more are now dead. I think the rest will follow. I don't know what I could have done better. It may be as you say, their initial health may be key here. When they all settled in the pet-store tank, they did not make a great effort to move around. One or two did seem interested in foraging. Their PH was around 7, and their temp around 77.
When I brought the 9 home, they went into a well cleaned and water changed 29 gallon cube for holding. The temp in there is 78. The PH was around 7.0. They went in, everything initially was fine. They still didn't really try to eat, all but maybe one or two. I know that they needed to be alone to have the best chance, so I started preparing a mature tank into a brook/river biotope.
When it was ready, I temp matched both tanks, and made sure both had same ph, and moved them over. Initially they perked up though quite a few still didn't want to make an honest effort to eat. A few found a place to sit, and then never moved, until they died. A few did start to engage in active behaviors, but by this morning they were all just sitting again. I noticed they were breathing a bit hard. So I decided to pull the heater(turn it off) and see if letting the tank drop a few degrees would help anything along. Came home to 3 more dead, and the rest pale and nearly dead. I've turned the heater back on but I really doubt that caused any problem. It took a full day almost to drop 2 degrees, that's not going to shock them.
It all seems to go back to their initial conditions. They didn't want to eat. All the dead have less than full bellies. They are starving to death. The ones who came to the pet-store dead or almost dead starved to death. Each one since then seems to have gone the same exact way. I am so disappointed as I had high hopes for them.
I am in the eastern part of US so US residents at least can expect some stores to get them. I am now aware that perhaps one other store has them but supposedly hasn't reported any deaths. We had dead on arrival. I'm rather upset at this. If they came in this thin, they should have been nursed to better health before shipping out to pet-stores. They should not be shipped if they do not have fatten enough bellies to survive shipping.
is a good over-all view of the tank. If in doubt I actually have this exact species:
