PlanetCatfish.com

Hello everyone!

I'm getting 6 (technically cf) and a group of whatever Corydoras sp my supplier has on his list when he gets the . All the fish will be coming from the same supplier and most likely the same tanks/water so they will all be going into a 30 gallon set up for the whiptails until the cory tank has grown in and cycled. All of the fish are going to wild caught so I figured i would De-worm them together. the brands of medication available to me are API, tetra and seachem and probably a few others as well. The tank is not bare bottom and is also planted (I know, I'm braking every rule in the book). If somebody could just walk me through the process of treating what I understand are more sensitive species and what medications you would recommend for treating them.

Anything helps!
James

I have no experience with the specific fish you mention, however, I have received wild Altum angels from the Rio Atabapo, Inirida and Orinoco on a few occasions. I can tell you these fish are not easy to keep alive initially. One of the reasons is the pH of their native habitat. In order to succeed I eventually had to receive them into a tank with a pH of 4.2 and TDS in the high 20s to low 30s ppm (I am not real familiar with conductivity values, so I use TDS). I then spent about 6 months or more gradually bringing these fish up to the current pH in which they live- between about 6.0 and 6.5.

I can point you to collectors having reported such parameters in the early 1990s. Note these tests were taken during the dry season so rainy season numbers are likely different-> http://www.finarama.com/chronicles/fornback1994.htm

In order to keep fish taken from such acid waters alive initially was a real battle. No only are pH and conductivity/TDS important, but so too are the underdeveloped immune systems of fish living in acid waters. Many bad bacteria in general are not found in acid environments. The result is many fish from such waters have lost their resistance to those bacteria which are often present in aquariums. This means they should not be put into an established tank. They have little or no defense against many pathogens. So it is as important to have antibiotics on hand for such fish as much or more than for worms or parasites. My prefererd medications for these tend to be Flubendazole and Levamisole HCL. Eventually if one wishes to keep these fish in higher pH than from where they were captured, we have to expose them to things. But this is easier to do with time and done gradually. It took me almost a year to introduce a couple of my H. contradens to the angel tank and it was only about 2 months ago that I added a group of rummy nose tetras. By then the fish had grown a lot and were a lot healthier than when they arrived.

As I stated, my experience with fish from several of the acid water rivers is restricted to Altums. I cannot say that the fish you are getting do indeed come from the same parts of the rivers you mentioned as altums. The parameters in such rivers can be very different in different sections. But, I would suggest you make sure, if you can, of what the natural parameters for these fish are when they were collected. If you can confirm this, it may save you some potential headaches. If they are collected from waters with higher pH and TDS levels, this will make your job a lot easier for sure.

If you are curious, here is a nice video about collecting wild Altums in the Rio Atabapo system https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duvFEPw ... Kg&index=7 I suggest you watch it at 720p and full screen.

Thank you for all the information!

Never really looked at extremely acidic waters So its all good to know! Strangely the Loricaria I am getting actually come from the Meta! They are by catch from when the fishermen go for the lhaneros whiptail, you can see what little progress was made in understanding the distribution of the fish and exactly what species it is here:

http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... =5&t=42507

The Ph from the tap in my house is 5-.5.5 and I believe in the tank is roughly the same.

Hallo for what it is worth, I just recieved 6 Loricaria sp. Rio Atabapo last week, I treat all my new arrivals with Microbelift Artimiss and Microbelift Herbtana.
Personally I prefer to use something more natural unless I see an actual problem that needs a stronger approach.
The ones that came to me were from Glaser, there were other fish in the order that weren't so healthy, but the whiptails were and are fine.
My water is slightly acidic and very soft, the only addition are some alder cones.