Aequidens metae and/or diadema

[Andrewtfw]

I am late to this thread. Jeff Rapps told me about this thread yesterday when I spoke with him at AM2. I picked up a trio of diadema JH. I currently have a pair of diadema that are four years old (male is about 8", female about 6"), and a pair of metae that are about 9 months old. The metae were from Rapps, but the diadema were bought from a lfs in NYC that is now out of business.
The diadema never showed aggression toward others, until the male did major damage to the female about a year ago that is not reversible. Her pectoral fins are mostly gone and her tail is shredded. He still occasionally chases her, but for the most part he has mellowed out.
My metae have recently bred (last week) for the second time. Currently, the female has the fry behind the wood. I have not seen her or her fry in a day or so. The male keeps a distance, but checks in on the female from time to time. He will also ward off other cichlids, but ignores the ancistrus. Here are a few pics taken just after the eggs were laid.

 

[teqvet]

Elevated heat (85+) and salt will cure it, too, if you don't want to use meds. Every fish I've purchased since the weather cooled off has brought ich in with it. It's just the nature of stressed fish + cooler temperatures. When you're getting fish from LFS/wholesaler/online vendor who are working with hundreds (or thousands) of fish, it's almost guaranteed.

Seven days of heat and salt, followed by another seven days of just elevated heat, will be sure it's gone. I have a QT tank in my bedroom, safely away from all my other tanks, just for that reason. They even get their own nets, buckets, and hoses just to be safe.

this x1000. I'm lucky in that my stock can handle near 90* temps and we got through the ich pretty damn quickly. few weeks later my blue acara are spawning ;p

 

[teqvet]

So I am looking at sprucing up the permanent tanks of these guys with some driftwood and I found two great sites with cheap prices and I want to know which type would be better. Manzanita or Malaysian? From what I can gather, Malaysian is heavier and has more bulk to it, but Manzanita has more branches and is longer. What would be a more natural feel for both the T. macs and the 'JH'?


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I have both malaysian and manzanita in mine, with medium sized smoothed river rock. Youc an click the link in my sig to see how my 125g is set up. Left side of the tank has the malaysian and the right side has a large rockpile with manzanita hanging everywhere.

 

[Aquanero]

Did you add salt every day? How much?
I ask because thanks to this thread, I checked my fish (picked up a trio of diadema JH from Rapps yesterday at Aquamania2), and found they too have a few spots of ich.

I used two tablespoons per 5 gallons for three days, I did an 80% wc yesterday and dosed at 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons temp is set at 89. In two days I'll do another 80% wc and redose salt at 1 to 5 again. In three days I'll do a 50% wc without adding any more salt and I'll just keep the heat up for a week and return to normal 82 degree setting and regular weekly wc schedule if all looks well.

Nice Metae!

 

[Andrewtfw]

I used two tablespoons per 5 gallons for three days, I did an 80% wc yesterday and dosed at 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons temp is set at 89. In two days I'll do another 80% wc and redose salt at 1 to 5 again. In three days I'll do a 50% wc without adding any more salt and I'll just keep the heat up for a week and return to normal 82 degree setting and regular weekly wc schedule if all looks well.

Nice Metae!

Thanks for clarifying your salt regimen.

 

[xEchOx]

I havent read the previous 90 or so responses so forgive me if im flogging a dead horse, but recently I have had problems with super resistant ick

I'm talking water thats showing 0 in nitrites and ammonia, <5 nitrates, so that stress isnt an issue, water heat being turned up well above 30°, salt added, and different brands of white spot treatment before either the fish dies or somehow gets rid of it after at least a couple of "cycles" of the ich parasite. I remember 10 years ago it used to be super easy to treat quickly, now its a real challenge, in my limited experience anyway

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I have a suspicion (no proof) that there are many different strains of ich, and that some become resistant to medications because of lack of proper dosing or early termination. Much like the bacterias that have become resistant to our own medications in the hospitals (MRSA). I've treated ich plenty of times and I've never had to get up to 3TBSP per 5 gallons before. That's a pretty heavy salt concentration IMO.

 

[Andicca]

Well I am on day 4 of the coppersafe and just as in previous experience, more than half the spots on the Diadema are gone, and nobody else in the tank infected so its doing its job. Metae's are clear (they didnt have it as bad as the diadema). I have found that it takes about 4 days before you see results. Never had much luck with the salt treatment, always lose a few fish.

 

[ryansmith83]

^ That's odd, I've never lost a fish with the salt and heat treatment. It does take 3 - 4 days for the spots to drop off, though.

 

[darth pike]

^ That's odd, I've never lost a fish with the salt and heat treatment. It does take 3 - 4 days for the spots to drop off, though.

Same. I only lost them when I used meds. Now it's exclusively salt and heat for me.

 

[neutrino]

I don't often need or use meds, but I'm not averse to them. Can't say what I usually do since I've literally had just one outbreak of ich in the past 20 years or so, but in that case a couple of years ago my approach was (and would be again) first salt and heat. If that doesn't work or at least show signs (it didn't, after a week the ich was just getting worse, after meds it cleared up in three days and I kept meds in there at least a week so it wouldn't come back) I'll go to coppersafe or Aquarisol (forms of copper) which used to work for me years ago and worked again this last time. Can't recall ever losing fish to ich this way, certainly not this last time. Not saying it's any more or less right than some other way, bottom line for me is I'm not in a hurry to use meds but I'm going to go with what works at the time.