Issue with P.maccus/aquarium

[MarlonnekeW]

Hi everyone,

I have a situation with my P.maccus and I'm not sure what to do anymore. About a month ago I bought a second P.maccus as company for my existing male. I've put them in my 80cm/125 L aquarium, together with 8 Corydoras schwartzi and 1 juvenile L201. For a week everything was going great; my new edition was very active and friendly to everyone. It quickly became one of my favorite fish. Then suddenly it's behavior changed; it started to chase the cory's. Strangely the behavior started around 6 o'clock in the evening, app. one hour after I fed them for the second time. There were absolutely no problems during the rest of the day (when I fed them in the morning everything was calm and peaceful), or with the other P.maccus and the cory's and there was also no aggression between the two clowns.
The strange thing is that I had similar problems before with the schwartzi's and my female L144, which I eventually had to rehome.

Because the schwartzi's were getting very stressed, I put my new P.maccus in 'time-out' in my 60cm/63L aquarium, where it was living with dwarf cory's and two Ancistrus claro. Here it was the sweetest fish in the world, causing absolutely no problems. So two days ago, I decided to give it another try in my 80cm aquarium. Now only two days later, I see the old behavior coming back again; it's very active again, chasing the cory's.
So the combination 80cm aquarium and P.maccus and/or P.maccus and Corydoras schwartzi is not working and I'll have to find another solution.

I have two options:
Putting them in a 70x40x35/app. 100L aquarium with a group of (juvenile) Corydoras concolor. Is it possible that my fish won't have any problems with cory's in another aquarium because it has a different set-up? Or could it for example be that my new fish is a female and the presence of a male is causing her to be protective of a certain area in the aquarium and the same problems are likely to happen again in the other aquarium?
The other option is putting the both of them in my 60cm aquarium, with a group of Corydoras pygmaeus. Because the pygmaeus are a lot smaller and are a lot more mid-level fish than other cory species, they probably won't see them as a threat. The only issue I have with this solution, is that my pygmaeus are breeding and removing the eggs is difficult, because they hide them on the leaves of plants. I'm afraid that the clowns will eat the cory eggs and prevent them from breeding.

It would be a great help to hear what you guys think. What could be causing this behavior and what would be the best option, so I can keep my clowns, without them stressing out the other fish?

Thank you very much for your help!
Marlonneke

[pleconut]

Are the clown plecos both adults, or subadults, I've recently found that one of my female L397s, since becoming sexually mature and showing interest in one of the males, has developed a bit of a territorial nature she chases any of the others away from one of the males caves if they get too close, and they don't have even need to get that close, maybe about 15 inches distance, she just charges at them. Unfortunately cories don't know territories as they will just go anywhere. Could be due to the presence of a male, but as you also mentioned feeding time issues, possibly putting them in with the pygmy corys in a different environment (tank layout ect) could help if they are less likely to wander into her territory. But I can't tell you if the clowns could be a threat to the corys eggs.

[pleconut]

I will add though, re the feeding when I feed my L397s the female is a model citizen even sharing food with the others.

[MarlonnekeW]

Thanks. I think the clowns around here are all wild caught, so they could be adults, or close to adults. The moment I feed them, my clown isn't causing any problems, just like your female. The aggression starts when all the food is long gone, about an hour later.

[pleconut]

What time do the lights go off. Mine go off early evening but the tank is dimly lit, that seems to be the time my female gets aggressive.
Edit. I noted around about the time your female clown pleco does, might be to do with the male being there.

[bekateen]

Hi Marlonneke,

We've talked before about those troublesome plecos of yours. When will they ever learn?!?

My maccus have eaten Cory eggs on the glass, but I wonder that maybe yours will ignore... or not find... eggs hidden in leaves. And mine have fought some with each other, but not with other corys. You may be safe rehoming yours with the spawning pygmies - it couldn't hurt to try for a while, anyway.

The other factor is hiding places, not just caves, but jumbles of wood too. I'll take a look at your My Aquaria pics if the tank is uploaded. Maybe some tank rearranging or redecorating would be helpful.

Well, I just looked at your tank and it looks well decorated. The clown should relax. I'm not sure what else to suggest... Maybe 1-2 more clowns to keep this fish busy?

Cheers, Eric

[MarlonnekeW]

@Teresa: I think it's really interesting to read that your female is acting the same way at around the same time a day. It might be the same issue.

Today I saw some interesting developments. I have two pieces of spiderwood. Normally my male clown in hanging out around the piece on the left of the aquarium and my new edition is living under the piece on the right. This morning, my male was fanning in the entrance of the cave under the piece on the right. Usually they swop sides when this happens, so my new clown would move out of the way, to the piece of wood on the left side of the aquarium. This time it didn't and was sitting right outside of the cave. At the moment, they are both sitting outside the cave, only 1 or 2 inches apart with absolutely no sign of aggression whatsoever. So the good news is that at least they are getting along just fine ;).

@Eric: I was thinking the same thing about the plants. I'm not sure what they are doing at night, but during the day, I've never seen my clowns on any of the plants. I also have some plants with delicate leaves in the aquarium and they would be strong enough to hold them.

At the moment my pygmies are very productive, spawning almost everyday, so as long as my clowns leave some of the eggs alone and won't eat all the little ones (I had a decent number of baby shrimps with my clowns, so based on that they should be save), it will be fine.

[pleconut]

My male L397s won't usually tolerate another one too close to their cave, but on quite a few occasions now, two females have been very close, I witnessed cave sharing and females trying to go the males caves. Seems possible your females aggression could be related to breeding related behaviours. My males also move caves often also to be nearer to where the females hang out. If you take a look at the pics in my recent thread you will see what I mean.
http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... +5&t=43227

[bekateen]

My female maccus usually camp outside the males' caves. That's a good thing.

[pleconut]

May be worth looking into a separate tank, as you could go on and have some spawning success with them:-)

[MarlonnekeW]

At the moment I'm redecorating their new aquarium. I found a piece of wood with a natural cave in it, that's just the right size for clowns. There's also a lot of room underneath the wood for more caves with lots of cover. So I can't wait for it to be ready for them to move in ;).
Who knows, maybe in a while I will have some baby clowns as well.

There's still a chance that it will be a separate tank for them. At the moment my pygmies are living with the Corydoras concolor. This was supposed to be a temporarily solution, because I had to change the substrate of their aquarium because of planaria and problems with the substrate itself. In the past I had problems with nitrite after a substrate change, so I thought it would be saver to move the pygmies into another aquarium, just to be sure. The move seems to have no negative effect on them, because they started spawning the next day and have been spawning every day ever since.
I expected the concolor to eat all the eggs, but yesterday I discovered an egg on the glass an so far it's still there. Therefore I think it's worth keeping them in here for a few weeks to see what will happen. I think it's unlikely, but if baby pygmaeus will start to appear in the next weeks, there's no need to move them into another aquarium and the clowns will have the other aquarium all to themselves.

[MarlonnekeW]

I still have one more small question. Last Tuesday I did a big clean up on the future P.maccus tank; I changed the substrate, put in new plants and cleaned the whole aquarium to get rid of too many snails, snail eggs and planaria. To make sure that everything was gone, I had to clean the internal filter and the filter materials.
I have a small spare internal filter, that has been running in one of my other (well cycled) aquariums for the last couple of months, so I've put that in as a temporarily second filter. I will also put in some 'old' aquarium water from my other tanks. Would that be enough to get the tank cycled for my 2 P.maccus?
With other fish I would say that it's enough, but since the clowns produce more waste than other fish, I'm not sure if the smaller filter will be able to cope with this.

[bekateen]

How big (liters or gallons) is the new tank? And no other fish are going in beside two maccus?

On the one hand, if you ONLY let them eat wood, which is relatively nitrogen-poor as a food (low protein content), and you don't add other foods to supplement (no pellets, flakes, fruits, veggies, or Repashy foods), it's my opinion and experience that although the maccus will pollute the water quickly with lots of sawdust poop, they don't actually harm water quality (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) as much as you would expect because their urine (like their food) is nitrogen-poor, compared to the urines of fish on more nutritious diets.

That said, depending on you new tank volume, I'm not sure that one old filter and some old water is enough. I've been told many times by different people on this site that most of your nitrogen metabolizing bacteria (and archaea, to be technically correct) are on surfaces, not in water. So while the aged filter is helpful, old water is not so helpful.

Proceed with caution, maybe try buying and dosing the new tank with a "starter" product full of beneficial bacteria, applying daily for several days before and after adding the maccus to the tank.

[MarlonnekeW]

The new tank is 63 l/app. 17 gallon and the two P.maccus are going to be the only two fish.

I think the theory that the bacteria need food (a.k.a. waste) to stay alive/multiply is very plausible, so I'm not sure if adding an 'old' filter without any residents in the aquarium is very useful. But the only two residents are going to be the clowns, and they are not really two little fish that make an ideal 'start population'. So that's my dilemma; I need some 'waste producers' to get the tank going, but I'm not sure if the future residents are suitable for that task.

[bekateen]

The old water, if taken from another tank, should provide a little (very little) food initially for microbes. I don't know how much risk to advise. Two maccus won't poison the water much, but I've never risked quick starting a new tank without also reusing old sand or gravel (not only a used filter). But because of snails, I can understand if that's not an option for you.

@twotankamin and @dw1305, any advice here?

Cheers, Eric

[MarlonnekeW]

I do have two other planaria and snail free aquariums, that are now running for a month or so. I could put a few 'spoons' of substrate from those tanks into this one. I'm just not sure if that substrate will already contain enough bacteria.

[bekateen]

Check out this link. It helped me in a similar situation:

How much time to cycle a new tank made from old parts

[MarlonnekeW]

Thanks, that's very interesting info.

Maybe I should add my experience with my other new tanks. With them, I used a different method of cycling than before. Normally I would let my tanks cycle for a few weeks with only substrate, plants, decoration and tap water, but I had some discussion about this with very experienced aquarium keepers and they advised me to use a different method this time.
I used new substrate, 50% water from my other aquariums and residue from other filters or a second cycled filter. After a week I (very) slowly started to add the residents. During all this time I measured NH4/NH3 and NO2 levels daily and they were not raised and stayed 0 and things are really going great. So I do believe that especially the used filter and filter residu really helps to cycle the tank.

[TwoTankAmin]

Old established tank water is of very little help in terms of nitrifying bacteria.

There are myriad ways to bump up the initial amount of bacteria. Substrate from the top 1/2 inch of established tanks is loaded with bacteria. Other solid decor from such a tanks will also have bacteria on it. Filter media from an established tank should be loaded with it as well. Youi can move this over intqact or rinse it out in the new tank. Live plants will help in two ways. They use ammonia as NH4 and they also host nitrifying bacteria on their leaves, stems and roots. Finally, some of the bacterial additives will work. I usually suggest either Dr. Tim's One and Only or Tetra Safe Start.

Unless using one of the above mentioned stater products, it is impossible to know how much bacteria one might be moving over from and established tank. And this leaves one to wonder if the tank is safe in terms of the nitrogen complex. There is a way to tell and I will get to this shortly. But I think is is important to explain why seeding bacteria in a new tank works so well to shorten any needed cycling. I say any needed because it is possible to introduce enough bacteria and/or live plants to make a tank instantly safe for fish. It works because both types of bacteria are present. And they should be present in a balanced fashion such that whatever amount of ammonia can be converted to nitrite, there will be enough nitrite oxidizers present to handle. Established colonies have both types of bacteria present. However, one should be aware that the AOB will reproduce faster than the NOB. So if one is really short of the needed AOB, you may see a small nitrite reading as the ammonia levels drop. This should not last very long.

So how can one know? You must add ammonia to the tank an then see what happens. Basically, you do the same things you would during a fishless cycle. So you need some ammonia of known strength or something like Dr. Tim's Ammonium Chloride which is formulated such that adding 1 drop per gallon should result in 2 ppm o ammonia. Short of that you must find ammonia with no additives and then use an ammonia calculator to determine the amount to add based on the concentration of ammonia you are using.

Basically, what you do is assemble the tank which includes however you will seed bacteria. Once the tank is setup, you will add between 1 and 2 ppm of ammonia. For lightly stocked 1 ppm works and for a bit heavily stocked, use 2 ppm. Then you wait and test in 24 hours. In order of desirability here is what you want to see:

1. 0/0 for both ammonia and nitrite. If you see this, you are good to go, do a big water change to remove any nitrate and add fish.
2. X/0 for ammonia and nitrite means your plants and seeding is not enough to handle all the ammonia yet but for whatever ammonia is being oxidized to nitrite, that amount of nitrite is also being handled. You would then have to wait for ammonia clearly to drop to under .5 ppm at which time you should add a second dose of ammonia and then wait again.
3. X/X for ammonia and nitrite means you are short of bacteria for both AOB and NOB and more cycling is needed. This can mean waiting a few days and continuing as with a fishless cycle. However, it should go fairly fast. An alternative is to add more bacteria.

Basically, the addition of ammonia serves as a test to determine if the tank is or is not safe. But there is another consideration here. Total Ammonia is what most test kits read, i.e. NH3 + NH4. Only the NH3 is highly toxic and it is the main concern. Knowing how much of any total ammonia reading is in the form of NH3 requires using an ammonia calculator and knowing the pH and temperature of the water. This higher these are, the more of any total ammonia reading that is in the form of NH3. As a guideline NH3 at .02 ppm is pretty much safe for all aquatic life and for most fish the red line is at .05 ppm*. Some fish can handle more but that is another discussion.

To know how much of any total ammonia reading is NH3 requires the use of an Ammonia Calculator. The one I have always used is here http://www.hamzasreef.com/Contents/Calc ... mmonia.php Set the salinity level to 0 for fw tanks.

Just as an FYI a reading of .5 ppm total ammonia in a tank at 78F and various pHs looks like this for NH3:
pH 7.0 = .0030 ppm
pH 7.5 = .0094 ppm
pH 8.0 = .0285 ppm
pH 8.5 = .0803 ppm
So if your water is pH 8.0 or lower, that .5 ppm total ammonia reading is not really a concern over the short term. This is especially true because the bacteria are constantly multiplying as long as one is getting any reading of ammonia or nitrite in a tank. They reproduce in response to more ammonia or nitrite (up to a point) being present than they can use.

The above is the science of it all which runs contrary to what one usually reads on general fish sites where readers are told any reading of ammonia is harmful and requires immediate water changes. This simply is not true. But for newbies it may be the safest bet. Bear in mind that cycling is a short term process and this is not the same thing as ammonia or nitrite suddenly showing up in an established tank. During cycling we expect to see ammonia and nitrite and we also expect them to 0 out in a matter of weeks.

Sorry if this is overly long, but I am long winded if nothing else

* http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/exoti ... #v23353508 scroll down to the section on "Nitrogenous Compounds"

[MarlonnekeW]

Thank you very much for all this info. This really helps! I'll go and see if I can get some suitable ammonia here in the Netherlands to test with.

In the past I used Tetra Safe Start, but at the LFS they told me that it's the same product as Sera Nitrivec, which is about half the price (so they recommended Nitrivec). Is this correct or is Nitrivec not as good as Safe Start?

I immediately believe that the water of an established tank won't help with the bacteria, but I experienced that it does have another benefit. Normally it takes a while for the tap water to become 'aquarium water'. In my case this means a (slightly) higher ph (7.5 instead of 7) and a higher kh and gh. With the two new tanks, I added 50% old water and I immediately got a ph of 7 and a kh and gh of 5. The fish species I own are not very picky when it comes to these values, but I can imagine that if you have more sensitive species this can help.

[pleconut]

If for example you're transfering fish from one tank to another adding water would be beneficial for the fish, if your tap water params are significant in difference, I find I need to do this as over time my aquarium params alter significantly.

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I think the theory that the bacteria need food (a.k.a. waste) to stay alive/multiply is very plausible, so I'm not sure if adding an 'old' filter without any residents in the aquarium is very useful.

If a filter sponge has been in an aquarium for any length of time it will be seeded with the micro-organisms you need, whatever the bio-load of the aquarium was.

"Cycling" isn't an on/off switch, it is a steep curve from an entirely microbially sterile situation to the stable, resilient species assemblage that you get in a mature healthy tank. If you have a sponge that has been in a tank, with some biological processes occurring, you have already surmounted the foot-hills and you are well on your way to the "sunlit uplands".

However I agree with TTA that you have to look at the two steps in the biological oxidation of ammonia to nitrite, and eventually nitrate (NH3/NH4+ > NO2- > NO3-), slightly differently.

We know from DNA sequencing that the assemblage of AOO (ammonia oxidising organisms) is much more varied than we thought it was ("One organism responsible..." <http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... hp?t=42783>). I'm fairly confident that the archaea and bacteria you import to your new tank will be able to convert the ammonia to nitrite, without any problem, as long as we can supply enough oxygen and have a supply of carbonates (4 dKH is plenty). Nitrification is an oxygen intensive process (we've gone from NH4+ to NO2-) and an acidifying process (we've added three H+ ions, and an acid is an "H+ ion donor").

The conversion of NO2- to NO3- is, as far as we know, carried out by Nitrospira spp. bacteria in aquariums, and their population will take longer to expand to the available nitrite supply.

Have a look at "Bacteria revealed"<http://www.alltropicalfish.com/saltwate ... a-revealed> it is some of Dr Tim Hovanec's more recent research into nitrifying organisms and has time scales in it.

There are myriad ways to bump up the initial amount of bacteria. Substrate from the top 1/2 inch of established tanks is loaded with bacteria. Other solid decor from such a tanks will also have bacteria on it. Filter media from an established tank should be loaded with it as well. You can move this over intact or rinse it out in the new tank. Live plants will help in two ways. They use ammonia as NH4 and they also host nitrifying bacteria on their leaves, stems and roots.

The top layers of the sediment area very rich source of microbial diversity, partially due to the oxygen gradients that occur from the surface down into the substrate. Personally I always have plants, and particularly plants with access to aerial gases, for the reasons TTA mentions.

The new tank is 63 l/app. 17 gallon and the two P.maccus are going to be the only two fish.

On the one hand, if you ONLY let them eat wood, which is relatively nitrogen-poor as a food (low protein content), and you don't add other foods to supplement (no pellets, flakes, fruits, veggies, or Repashy foods), it's my opinion and experience that although the maccus will pollute the water quickly with lots of sawdust poop, they don't actually harm water quality (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) as much as you would expect because their urine (like their food) is nitrogen-poor, compared to the urines of fish on more nutritious diets.

But the only two residents are going to be the clowns, and they are not really two little fish that make an ideal 'start population'. So that's my dilemma; I need some 'waste producers' to get the tank going, but I'm not sure if the future residents are suitable for that task.

You don't need any "waste producers", or other methods of adding ammonia, Eric (Bekateen) has the reason why your Panaque won't produce a huge bioload.

What you need to ensure is that the saw-dust doesn't end up in the filter, where it can compromise water flow and cause de-oxygenation of the filter media.

I have a large, rigid PPI10 sponge block on my filter intake, like these (in the UK they sell them for Koi ponds):



From (<"5 substrate questions": http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... ge#p288624>).

In the Netherlands you should be able to get Poret foam blocks, like the ones "Swiss Tropicals" sell in the USA <http://www.swisstropicals.com/filtratio ... lter-shop/>.

cheers Darrel

[TwoTankAmin]

Just to add one thing. The bacteria/archaea will not drop dead if there is no ammonia source. They are able to detect when ammonia and/or oxygen is severly depleted/absent and they go into hibernation. In a well established tank and filter they are also in tip top shape when they do. That means they do better in hibernation and revive faster when things go back to normal. This is how these organisms that do not form spores survive hard times. Here is a quote from Dr. Hovanec's site:

Nitrifying bacteria don’t form spores, but that doesn’t mean they can’t last in a bottle (think about it – if nitrifying bacteria could not survive poor conditions, how would they have survived for millions of years?) They can live in a bottle but under optimal conditions, and the time period is about one year. The nitrifying bacteria don’t die in the bottle; their activity level drops and eventually it becomes so low that there is little measurable positive effect when they are poured into the aquarium water.

http://www.drtimsaquatics.com/nitrifyin ... k-provided

What doesn't work in this respect is a simple reduction in ammonia (or oxygen to a point). When these are merely reduced some, all that happens is the total number of microorganisms declines, but the colony does not go dormant. In a tank where all the fish/inverts are removed, the nitrifying bacteria will do just fine for many months. Especially if its not most of the oxygen that is removed. The lack of ammonia will be enough to make them go dormant. But when we are talking a matter of days or weeks, this should be no issue what-so-ever in an established tank or filter.

[Jobro]

Disclaimer: This input is meant for enthusiasts with aquaristic experience and many tanks.

People are way too much frightened of that "evil" ammonia/nitrit peak in new tanks.

There is a true core to that. If you put huge bioload on a sterile tank and just watch without using your brains it won't go good.
That's about all that is to it. Starters happen to make that mistake a lot. New tank. Add a lot of guppies, cories, some BNs. Watch them die after 1-3 weeks.
This will inevitable go wrong if you are a beginner, don't know the basics and can't recognize the symptoms of fish being poisoned.
The internet and forums created that myth that "nitrite peak is going to happen in a bad way, if you don't wait 6 weeks" or more before adding first fish.

Going with the 6 weeks may reduce risks by a lot. But you still just can't pop in too many fish at once after that 6 weeks.
Nitrite peak will always happen in any tank when bioload is sky-rocketing at once. No matter if it is cycled or not.

So go with a few fish from day 1, do at least 50% waterchange a week, keep it very clean in the first weeks, feed only very very little (this is where most people kill their fish in the first weeks).
Increase number of fish weekly. Keep up waterchanges. A bad nitrite peak is not likely to happen if you stick to that. If you notice any symptoms of poisoning, do a 50% waterchange. But you probably will not encounter any problems going with that. This is for a sterile tank. If you do have some biomedia from another tank there is nothing to worry if you stick to waterchanges and slowly raise the bioload. There will be some minor nitrite bumps, but only very very sensitive fish are going to care. Those small bumps will always happen when you increase bioload - cycled or not. More regular waterchanges will reduce risks further.

This input is meant for enthusiasts with aquaristic experience and many tanks.
However: If you set up your first aquarium, stick to the 6 weeks and add fish slowly afterwards.

[MarlonnekeW]

Thanks for all the information. This is all very interesting and I've learned a lot about cycling and bacteria.

At the moment, my two P.maccus are still in my community tank and so far, things are looking good. Besides the clowns and the schwartzi's, there was also a L201 in the tank, which I've moved to one of the new aquariums last Monday. Even though my L201 is very friendly and docile, this seems to have made a difference in the tank dynamic. Now my two clowns both have their own area, which they don't have to share with another Loricariidae. I looks like it made them more relaxed about their territory.
This tank is bigger than the other one, so as long as things are going well, I will keep them in here.
Another 'issue' is that my Corydoras pygmaeus are vey productive, when it comes to spawning. Yesterday I had to rearrange the plants, so I decided to check them for cory eggs and put the eggs in a netbreeder. I found more than 100 eggs and my pygmaeus have only been in this aquarium for a week. So it looks like I will be needing all the free aquarium space I can find for my baby pygmaeus ;).