I had a very hard time recently with newly bought C. melini. The mortality was unusually high for me. They were bought from a LFS, which has good maintenance practices and is one of the most trusted sources in my area. They keep their fish in straight tap water, which is different from mine. Tap water around here is high pH (8.6), high KH, and ever so fluctuating GH due to fairly wide Magnesium/Calcium swings. I keep mine more towards neutral, by diluting it 1 tap to 2 parts Ro, which results in moderate KH and pH of 6.5-7.
Out if abundance of caution my new arrivals are on drip acclimation (with breaks and rates in stages: initial drip is slow, then accelerated some towards the end. As I remove and dump the water in where the fish are, I give them hiurs lon breaks to get adjusted to newer water, then resume the process) for at least 48 hours time.
The first batch of C. melini were 12 fish and only 5 made through 72 hours acclimation, where the rates of tank water dripped were very low. They were in tap water fro two weeks prior to me getting them, doing well at the store. Not sure what happened. I had the fish replaced and of the 6, that I then acclimated over a whole week (!!) only one died. A similar story happened with a bunch of CW106 that I got from that store earlier in the year.
Over the years I have never had experienced such high mortality. While C. melini have been fairly easy to get, it still hurts me to think about the CW106, which are very rare, as I am finding.
What are experiences people have had with unexpected outcomes in acclimation? What were solutions? Any sharing of observations / conclusions, etc. will be most helpful to me. Thanks.
High mortality with new C. melini
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Pleko_Fur777
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dw1305
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Re: High mortality with new C. melini
Hi all,
I'm really sorry to hear of your losses, but it almost certainly isn't anything to do with the water differences, it is much more likely to be a build up of ammonia in the water during the drip acclimation.
Others will disagree, but I like the fish to swim into their new tank fairly rapidly, ideally under their own steam.
The other potential issue is self poisoning, and I think that getting the fish Into large volume of clean water as rapidly as possible is honestly the better option.
Cheers Darrel
I'm really sorry to hear of your losses, but it almost certainly isn't anything to do with the water differences, it is much more likely to be a build up of ammonia in the water during the drip acclimation.
Others will disagree, but I like the fish to swim into their new tank fairly rapidly, ideally under their own steam.
The other potential issue is self poisoning, and I think that getting the fish Into large volume of clean water as rapidly as possible is honestly the better option.
Cheers Darrel