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Do you ever get the feeling that some species just aren't your thing - not because you don't like them, but because you simply can't keep them alive long enough. The other day, I found the female dead. That's the second female that has died for me - different tank, different circumstances, but still...

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Mats

[mod edit: Jools: fixed clog tag spelling]

Corydoras pygmaeus and Apistogramma borelli.
I can keep minute brackishwater gobies and finicky blackwater anabantids alive no problem, but C. pygmaeus and A. borelli are cursed.
The pygmaeus just die, but the borelli was interesting: I had a group of three thriving females for several years, but every male I bought would color up nicely, start patrolling his turf... and turn up dead for no apparent reason within a few weeks. After male number 5 I decided borelli just wasn't for me. I still have no clue what went wrong there.

Corydoras pygmaeus, too! Doomed. I had one group live a few days. The next group died one by one. I was left with a breeding pair. They died two weeks later-no surviving fry. It's not just you, Mats. I think we all have those few species that keep us wondering.
Amanda

I struggle to keep neon tetras, Apistogramma agassizii, and any type of Danio. I'm also having problems with most tetras (except glowlights) and a few corys at the moment due to high nitrate spikes (with readings of about 50 mg/l, although I find nitrate test kits impossible to read "accurately") in the tap water- a few colleagues and at least one LFS in my area are having similar problems with tap water. The water quality problem is hopefully short-term, but I've been struggling with fish for the last few months and only recently thought to test the tap water.

I've only had Callichthys 20 months but have found them, thus far, to be pretty tough- they've grown well (although seem to have settled down at about 4.75-5.25" SL) and never been ill (of course if they all die this month my opinions will change). I can't suggest any reason why your fish might be dying other than possible gluttony on the part of the Callichthys, as they make hoplos seem like finicky eaters. A friend of mine can't keep hoplos alive, and I've always found these to be really robust.

With C. pygmaeus (bought at the same time as the Callichthys) I've lost 3 in the last four months (plus 5 of 8 CW021) and the remaining seven pygmaeus aren't looking happy- this might be due to the dodgy tap-water as well.

High nitrate is why I'm using RO water for some (most) of my tanks. Our tap-water is about 30ppm nitrate, which when combined with heavily stocked tanks tend to cause problems... ;) But the Callichthys are in tap-water, but it's replaced at a rate of 4x a week or so (4 tanks at 100 liter get the RO waste-water fed into the sump. The RO produces a good 400 liter a week, so approximately 1600 liter of waste-water -> 4x water change each week - it keeps the nitrate levels at bay).

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Mats

MatsP wrote:Our tap-water is about 30ppm nitrate

Good lord. Would be perfect for a planted tank, though, as it's pre-fertilized. ;)
My tapwater has 0.5 ppm nitrate, which means that if I want to keep plants alive I have to use fertilizer, there's no way to feed the fish enough to maintain non-zero nitrate.

Thus far, my Callichthys have remained healthy, so I don't think they're sensitive to nitrates in the same was that some of the small corys are- my fish deaths are principally occurring in my non-overstocked tanks, and the overstocked tanks (which are probably more robust fish) aren't having fish sicknesses. As previously stated, I've only had mine for 20 months (I've only started keeping fish again for the last 22 months, after a 17-year break), so they may yet go belly-up on me.

I'm not really sure RO water is an option for me as there isn't really room in the house for lots of pipes etc.- I've seen a few units from people with fish houses and they seem to take a lot of space up. Our water authority posts water quality reports on its website regularly, and they're always low in nitrate, so I'm hoping it was a rogue situation.

The RO unit itself doesn't take up that much space - about 15" x 15" x 6" (6" from wall to front of unit). But I have two 25g loft-tanks to store the water - that is the main space consumption. Of course, you can keep the water in the loft or some such!

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Mats

And this morning I found the male dead. I think I know why: It probably ate some of my new food - JBL Novo Pleco. I used to feed Hikari wafers, but switched to JBL's food recently. And whilst it's good food for plecos, I'm a bit disappointed with the size of the tablets - they are about 8 mm in diameter, where the Hikari are almost twice that size. And they are meant to be gnawed, not swallowed hole.

I didn't dissect the fish, but I'm pretty certain that is what happened.

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Mats

this sucks.....Callichthys are great fish! sad to hear it, Matt
and very hard to get.

I sure killed off mine back in the 80's.
the first 3 I had in a way too overcrowded tank. once disease struck in there I lost well over half the fish in a single week, including all my Callichthydae (several hoplo's and the 3 Callichthys).
the sole female Callichthys i got in the early 90's met her end during a house move.
I had plenty experience to know that fish like these are escape artists.
still didn't put adequate cover on the bath tub holding the fish while the tank was set up and I found my single oddball dried up the next day.

Fish that are definitely doomed here:
Physailia. no matter how hard I tried, these just kept on dying. developed red sores and literally fell apart.
Belonoglanis. ditto. this fish invented fragility or something.....
Typhlonectes (aquatic legless amphibians from Amazon). again and again they got infections and died. after a few I stopped killing them by not buying them.
Cyprichromis microlepidotus (any variety). odd to experience that these are so much more fragile than the other kinds of Cyp.....
Lamprichthys tanganicanus. a very difficult fish that collects bruises and infections like some people collect stamps. baffles me.
Reganochromis calliurus. another fish I won't try in a hurry.
Bathybates fasciatus, ditto.
Pelvicachromis spp, any species. but with these I found out why; the water here is way too hard with a too high pH for them. any waterchange needed to get out the nitrates would harm my fish. ditto Nannochromis.
maybe Typhlonectes suffered from this and perhaps Physailia as well. an acidity problem.

the pH and hardiness issue is why I switched from South American and West African fish to Riftlake and Madagascar.
shame, cause I still want to breed several South American and African catfish species.....

sidguppy wrote: Pelvicachromis spp, any species. but with these I found out why; the water here is way too hard with a too high pH for them. any waterchange needed to get out the nitrates would harm my fish. ditto Nannochromis.

That could make them hard to breed, and/or give skewed sex ratio of the offspring, but shouldn't really cause losses. My taeniatus did very well at pH 8.3 & sky-high hardness.
It could be a case of high bacterial load in the water, that will tend to produce sores and boils in the fish. If so a UV filter might help. Otherwise, if you're sure it's the tapwater, it sounds like a RO filter might be a good idea.

Blimey Mats! remind me NOT to get you any more...sad news - it looked so healthy & in great shape the other day

Richard B wrote:Blimey Mats! remind me NOT to get you any more...sad news - it looked so healthy & in great shape the other day

Sure, it looked in good shape yesterday morning too. Just floating there, upside down, with a very bloated belly this morning.

I won't ask you (or anyone else) to get me any more. I'll just accept they are not for me... But I still kick myself for not thinking more about it. I thought it when I opened the tub of Novo Pleco tablets that "Hmm, these are not very large", but it didn't quite get me thinking "I'd better not give these to the tank with the Callichthys in it".

And to boot, I paid 25 quid for an extra large tub, because I have heard lots of good things about them (and the fish that they are for certainly seem to like them).

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Mats

Really sorry to hear the male's gone too Mats, but I'm not certain that Callichthys tend to swallow non-soft food whole- mine even chew and spit 2mm JMC catfish pellets (making a mess in the process!), meaning they get seriously outcompeted by the syno when she decides she's hungry, because she just swallows anything that fits in her mouth and so can feed probably 20-30 times faster than the Callichthys and hoplos. They can, however, eat a LOT of food in one go. I suppose it's not impossible they could swallow something with an 8mm diameter, but they're more likely to if it's soft rather than hard food.