Pelvicachromis Idenau heavy labored breathing not eating and sitting on bottom of tank

[SomethingsFishyHere]

So I have a pelvicachromis Idenau that is breathing heavily and sitting on the bottom of the tank not eating. I had a pair the male died a few days after. The female is still alive but she is breathing super fast. The water parameters are normal.

Water temp is 80F

Ammonia is 0

PH is 7.2

Nitrite is 0

Nitrate is between 5-10 PPM

There is pleanty of oxygen from my air stone.

Any information or help would be great thanks!

[Fish Folk]

So sorry to hear! Let's walk through this methodically:

When did you acquire the P. Idenau Krib? Have your fish died within days of being added to a new aquarium?

IF you just recently receive these by a special mail-in order, did you test the actual temperature of the fish bag when you received it? Or did you just plop the bag in your tank water to acclimate and then drop them in within an hour? If so . . . my first guess is a temperature mis-acclimation. Fish are cold blooded, and when they get raised from ca. 60s to 80s suddenly, their organs just sort of "explode."

IF you've had them awhile, how do their bellies look? Are they rounded and feeding right? What exactly have you been feeding them? Sunken bellies is a bad sign of internal parasites. Many wild=caught fish retain parasites. On the other hand, if you've been feeding large (or hard) pellets... or certain large-portions frozen foods... fish can die suddenly from blocked intestinal tracts. In Mbunas from Lake Malawi, that's sometimes referred to as "Malawi Bloat." Of course, your fish are River fish from west Africa (Idenau, Cameroon).

There are a number of other possibilities that can suddenly take a fish down. But to help, please share some more detailed information!

[SomethingsFishyHere]

Thanks for getting back to me. So I had the female for about a month no issues at all. Then I got a male a week ago since I planned to breed them. They were both fine but the male hid a lot. So then I moved the pair to a separate setup with the same parameters and temperature. All the other fish are completely fine except the kribs they both started acting the way I described after the 2nd day. So I feed New life spectrum tropical fish pellets. I also feed Xtream aquatic foods krill flake and Omega One veggie mini pellets. I swap out regularly. So I bought them from a local pet store and he ended up having the same issue and symptoms described. So im not sure if its some type of parasite or something along those lines. They both looked completely healthy. Normal bellies and such.

[Fish Folk]

On 1/26/2024 at 11:45 PM, SomethingsFishyHere said:

Thanks for getting back to me. So I had the female for about a month no issues at all. Then I got a male a week ago since I planned to breed them. They were both fine but the male hid a lot. So then I moved the pair to a separate setup with the same parameters and temperature. All the other fish are completely fine except the kribs they both started acting the way I described after the 2nd day. So I feed New life spectrum tropical fish pellets. I also feed Xtream aquatic foods krill flake and Omega One veggie mini pellets. I swap out regularly. So I bought them from a local pet store and he ended up having the same issue and symptoms described. So im not sure if its some type of parasite or something along those lines. They both looked completely healthy. Normal bellies and such.

So did the fish even touch your LFS water? Or did you get a call / message indicating that they had arrived for you to pickup in the shipping bag?

Do you know where they originated from? Any chance you maybe ran parameter on the bag of water he came in?

We've bed Kribs before, and raised fry to full color. I'm keeping Nanochromis parilus pair right now... but the male has not yet proven to be a good mate.

Edited January 27 by Fish Folk

[SomethingsFishyHere]

On 1/26/2024 at 11:30 PM, Fish Folk said:

Yes he had them in a tank for at least a couple of weeks. He got them from a local home breeder in the area. He is a very trusted source I have never had issues with him. Unfortunately I didn't run perimeters on the bag since I have never had issues from the store in the past. All my other kribs are completely fine it is just specifically the idenau that are having the issue. Thats why its strange to me. In all my years I have never seen this behavior unless perimeters were off.

 

[Fish Folk]

On 1/27/2024 at 12:07 AM, SomethingsFishyHere said:

 

Ok. Here’s some thoughts:

(1) Moving from one tank to another might have caused them to encounter something harmful. I cannot say exactly what…

(2) If possible, get ahold of that local breeder. Find out all of the water parameters these fish came from.

(3) Think through lighting. Is something too bright? Too close to a high traffic area in the home making them jump, hide, etc?

(4) Do you have caves? Kribs do tend to stay in caves a fair bit. That may calm them.

[SomethingsFishyHere]

Yeah exactly. I was going to see if he could get me in contact with the person who bred them to get some info. The tank is in a very low traffic room. But I do provide plenty of caves and plants and structure for them to escape and hide and get out of the light. I only keep my light on about 4 hours and its usually set pretty low.