Spencer Heaton

Hi Ram lover, There is no way to know for sure if it is illness related or an injury but if they both have it then we can lean to something other than injury. Couple of questions: 1) Have you done any water tests lately and if not then perhaps lets start there. If you have can you post your results 2) Is there any aggression that you have seen between any of the fish in the tank 3) Have you seen your fish itching or flashing against any hardscape or the glass trying to remove this bump? 4) What is your water change/maintenance schedule, tank size and temperature kept at? Rams are more sensitive to water temp and quality than most fish and if these are not kept at a good level then they seem to be more susceptible to illness than most fish. Please let us know about the above and lets see if we can dial this in for you. Spencer

Hi Everyone, I am not new to fish keeping but I am new to planted aquariums and I have an issue that may be causing illness in my fish related to PH and Soil Substrate affecting water parameters. I current have 13 tanks with 2 of them full soil bottoms and one with a lot of leaf litter and these 3 tanks seem to be the ones with issues. To note there is a little soil in the bottom of the leaf litter tank but mostly just sand/gravel mix. Water Parameters are 0ppm for NH3/NH4, NO2 & NO3 and I have been checking regularly. I have had 4 fish die over the last 4 weeks (2 in one of the soil tanks (male apisto agazzi & otto cat), 1 in the other soil tank (male betta) and 1 in the leaf litter tank (female apisto agazzi) and all of them have exhibited the same symptoms. I have had no deaths in any of my other tanks during this time and actually until this last month I think my last fish death was a very old GBR about 6 months prior. All of these deaths came about 3-4 days after a water change. I usually do about 40-50% once a week and I use tap water in all my tanks. The PH for most of my tanks (when testing) has been around 7.4-7.6 which is identical to my tap water. Now before anyway says that Apisto's need softer water I know but the other Apistos in those tanks are all fine and most of them I have had for over 5 months (added the odd male or female here and there to balance out aggression). All fish were from a local breeder (except the Betta & Otto as I do not know where they were from) but all were being kept in tap water and been at the store for well over a month). The only new fish in this equation I believe is the male Agazzi as I only had him for 2 weeks and when I got him I notices a cauliflower like growth near his head so I was treating that tank with the med trio. The 2 soil only tanks have been up and running for about a year and the leaf litter tank was re-scaped about 6 months ago. The symptoms all 4 fish showed was a lack of appetite, no energy (just sat on the bottom or under a leaf), labored breathing, and eventually died. No other fish exhibited any of these symptoms in the tank both before or since this includes glow light tetras, pencil fish, Bristlenose plecos, other Ottos, both Chinese and Siamese Algae eaters, rummy nose tetras, etc. Ok - so here is my question. I know that soil and leaf litter can affect (lower) hardness (tap water TDS is around 300) and PH so I am wondering if a water change of 50% could have killed these fish if the PH of the New water was 0.2 or 0.4 higher than the water in the tank that was being affected by the PH lowering properties of the soil and leaf litter? Also hardness may have been slightly higher in the new water. Unfortunately I did not specifically do a PH or TDS test prior to these water changes as all the fish were looking fine and by habit I do not do PH or TDS in my usually test regime unless there are issues (i.e. I will be doing these next week). Please let me know your thoughts on this or if you need any further information on the above. thanks, Spencer