Starving ram?

[geneticbits]

I brought home two gold rams a little less than a month ago. These are my first cichlids. I'm not sure they've been reading as they should since I never see them swarm the flakes the rest of the tank gets (and my LFS said would be fine for them). So I bought small sinking pellets made for cichlids. Those they suck up then spit out a couple times and then the pellet is lost in the gravel.

Today I noticed one of them looked like this:


Is it starving or sick or both? What should I do?

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[jonclark96]

Definitely looks sick. Any signs of stringy, white poo? Could be internal parasite.

Also, what are the tank mates? The fins look pretty beat up. The illnes could be stress induced.

 

[hollyfish2000]

Also check wate quality.

You can try bloodworms to temp them to eat.

 

[geneticbits]

I haven't had a chance to check water quality yet. I'm a chemistry teacher and this tank is in my classroom. I was only able to isolate them during my lunch break and it's my prep period now. I won't have a chance to check until after school. Other tankmates are:
-5 zebra danios
-4 glo tetras
-2 oto cats
-1 rainbow shark (he always keeps to himself and I have different hiding spots to help with territory issues)
also - it's a 29 gal and all other fish seem healthy - color is good, active, etc

My other ram's fins look fine, so if someone is attacking, they are singling this one out.

Right now I have both rams in a small 1gal critter keeper with some pellets, frozen bloodworms and flakes in my storage room so they aren't getting stressed from new "tank" and students everywhere. I'm not planning on leaving them in there, but my hospital tank is in the process of being decontaminated (ich in my other tank) so it's the best I can do at the moment.

 

[jonclark96]

It may be the other ram doing the harassing. They are cichlids, after all.

 

[Becca]

You might not want to leave all of that food in there for very long - the water will foul and kill them both pretty quickly :-/.

 

[cichlidaddicted]

Ime no healthy cichlid will turn down bloodworms. When my cichlids don't eat it is almost always a precursor or symptom of a deeper problem. The first thing I do is test water even if it seems good I do a water change, check for other symptoms-bloat, loitering at surface, uneven keel, concave stomach, clamped or frayed fins, ect. Add salt and or epsom, turn off lights, increase airation. Finally with no other options I treat with broad spectrum antibiotics in your case bacterial or parasitic not fungal. Good luck, keep us posted.

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[geneticbits]

Thanks. I went out and got some triple sulfa and moved them to my hospital tank. (I rinsed, rinsed, rinsed and then rinsed with strong salt concentration a couple times)

I tested the water quality of their original tank and these were my results:
pH 8.2 (hard water)
ammonia 0.25 ppm
Nitrite 0 ppm
Nitrate 10 ppm

I don't know why I have an ammonia reading. It's an established tank for about 2 years. Nothing has died recently. I don't think it's over stocked. I'm stumped.

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[geneticbits]

Oh, I removed the food from their little temporary tank after a little while, too.

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[zackcrack00]

Rams need soft water. They like a ph of 6-7. That high ph could be causing stress and leading to some sort of ailment. I had the same problem with my Kribensis cichlids not eating. They eat what's left over after they can't see you through the tank glass. Try feeding frozen BloodWorms and immediately walking away from the tank, but keep an eye on them. They shoyld eat those.