Thought about making the title here Unsuccessfully Keeping Uaru Fernandeznonoteasy or The Gremlin Uaru.
Read on to see why.
Recevied 4 Uaru fernandezyepezi a week and half ago. One is about 5.5 inches and the other three are about 4 inches. For the first day they seemed happy and in fact ate immediately. They were behaving, well like cichlids. Then from day two they have acted like fish stressed to the max. Firstly the water parameters. Where I live in southern California the water is beyond hard and alkaline, so I've been forced to use nearly 100% R/O water. I have added Kent R/O right to in order to add back minerals and achieve stability. Here's my latest water test results. PH 6.6 (Came from seller's water that was 6.8), Ammonia 0ppm, Nitrite 0ppm, Nitrate 0ppm, KH 30ppm, Temp 81 degrees. I really have gone more out of the way for good water quality than I have for any other freshwater fish I've ever kept and I've been fishkeeping for a long time.
They arrived to me a bit later than anticipated because they came down with the "white slime" that is not unusual for wild specimens. The person I got them from treated them and was really excellent about making sure they were "right" before he would ship them. They were eating immediately and aside from tattered fins to be expected, were in good shape. On the dreaded day 2 they started hovering in the corner together, pectoral fins whipping away and gasping. I continued to test the water 3 times a day to be sure I was not missing anything. Polyfilter, Carbon, Nitrazorb and 4 API Water Softening Pillows (I know overkill) were all added at some point to keep things perfect. After reading a post here from someone taking a crack at keeping fernandezyepezi for the 2nd time, I started playing around with some non water issues. Firstly, the brightness of my Hagen GLO light fixture was clearly not agreeing with them (no bright lights, hence the Gremlin reference), so it was shut off. Secondly I had two forms of filtration, a hang on the back wet/dry and a HOT Magnum. At one point I shut them both down and while they were still shy/nervous, their behavior definitely improved a bit.
To bring things up to date I now have lighting on their 75 gallon that is really meant for a 20 gallon. The HOT Magnum was removed and the outlet on the wet dry was pointed in toward a corner to cut down the flow. I have ordered an Eheim modular spray bar which enables you to rotate the bar in up to three directions. It is due here on Monday. I plan to hook it to the pump of the wet dry and remove the spout style outlet. This should spread out and minimize the flow a bit. Today I added six 3" Denesoni (Roselines), to hopefully help settle them in a bit and they are doing great. Now, the one kicker. They Uaru's eat very well and really have not refused a thing I have offered to them. They have been kept on a vegetarian diet of mostly "Repashy" and Spirulina. However they are also happy to suck down Bloodworms (twice a week). Feeding IS NOT a problem.
Unfortunately, these fish just are not happy and now spend 95% of their time behind my piece of show driftwood. Any sound advice or suggestions are most appreciated. Please keep in mind that I must go out to get my R/O water at the cost of 20 cents a gallon, so doing more than a large water change once a week probably isn't in the cards. I'm already planning on spending over $10 a week just for their water alone before I treat it with R/O Right. I fear I might have to look to selling them to someone who has easy access to water that better suits them (though I don't want to). Please chime in if you can help and thanks.
Read on to see why.
Recevied 4 Uaru fernandezyepezi a week and half ago. One is about 5.5 inches and the other three are about 4 inches. For the first day they seemed happy and in fact ate immediately. They were behaving, well like cichlids. Then from day two they have acted like fish stressed to the max. Firstly the water parameters. Where I live in southern California the water is beyond hard and alkaline, so I've been forced to use nearly 100% R/O water. I have added Kent R/O right to in order to add back minerals and achieve stability. Here's my latest water test results. PH 6.6 (Came from seller's water that was 6.8), Ammonia 0ppm, Nitrite 0ppm, Nitrate 0ppm, KH 30ppm, Temp 81 degrees. I really have gone more out of the way for good water quality than I have for any other freshwater fish I've ever kept and I've been fishkeeping for a long time.
They arrived to me a bit later than anticipated because they came down with the "white slime" that is not unusual for wild specimens. The person I got them from treated them and was really excellent about making sure they were "right" before he would ship them. They were eating immediately and aside from tattered fins to be expected, were in good shape. On the dreaded day 2 they started hovering in the corner together, pectoral fins whipping away and gasping. I continued to test the water 3 times a day to be sure I was not missing anything. Polyfilter, Carbon, Nitrazorb and 4 API Water Softening Pillows (I know overkill) were all added at some point to keep things perfect. After reading a post here from someone taking a crack at keeping fernandezyepezi for the 2nd time, I started playing around with some non water issues. Firstly, the brightness of my Hagen GLO light fixture was clearly not agreeing with them (no bright lights, hence the Gremlin reference), so it was shut off. Secondly I had two forms of filtration, a hang on the back wet/dry and a HOT Magnum. At one point I shut them both down and while they were still shy/nervous, their behavior definitely improved a bit.
To bring things up to date I now have lighting on their 75 gallon that is really meant for a 20 gallon. The HOT Magnum was removed and the outlet on the wet dry was pointed in toward a corner to cut down the flow. I have ordered an Eheim modular spray bar which enables you to rotate the bar in up to three directions. It is due here on Monday. I plan to hook it to the pump of the wet dry and remove the spout style outlet. This should spread out and minimize the flow a bit. Today I added six 3" Denesoni (Roselines), to hopefully help settle them in a bit and they are doing great. Now, the one kicker. They Uaru's eat very well and really have not refused a thing I have offered to them. They have been kept on a vegetarian diet of mostly "Repashy" and Spirulina. However they are also happy to suck down Bloodworms (twice a week). Feeding IS NOT a problem.
Unfortunately, these fish just are not happy and now spend 95% of their time behind my piece of show driftwood. Any sound advice or suggestions are most appreciated. Please keep in mind that I must go out to get my R/O water at the cost of 20 cents a gallon, so doing more than a large water change once a week probably isn't in the cards. I'm already planning on spending over $10 a week just for their water alone before I treat it with R/O Right. I fear I might have to look to selling them to someone who has easy access to water that better suits them (though I don't want to). Please chime in if you can help and thanks.
