Anyone with experience on Freshwater Cichlids?

[dennis romano]

You have me laughing here a little its nice to get a laugh in. I am feeding RONS CICHLID PELLETS (MBUNA) along with spirulina tablets and frozen mysis. I am feeding this to both the peacock and the yellow lab. I can change the food if you think this will help? Wow to chlorine. Thanks for your enlightment.

I do hear you on ammonia. I have a cycled filter in the yellow lab QT and once a week i test for ammonia just because, and it has always showing 0. He has been in this tank for 60 days with the same filter. His redness has remained gone for the past 2 weeks, but the flashing continues. You can tell he looks irritated at times. He does only seem to flash his gill area. but he is so small i dont know how i can get a gill sample. they dont appear swollen, and his gill movements have been around 50-65 per minute. Is this elevated for a juvenile yellow lab?

The elevated breathing is a sign of stress. What caused the initial redness probably fried his gills. This should heal in time. If anything, add an airstone. All I feed the mbuna is several different types of Tetramin, flakes and pellets. Sometimes, I throw in Nori. My 75 with small Haps gets the same. Now and then, I treat the Haps to bloodworms. If you are really going to get into Africans, try Dave's Rare Fish in Texas. The fish are not as large as Ron's but he has a good variety.

 

[Tetra1]

If you can get a video together with what’s happening it would be a bit more helpful. I’ve dealt with many sick fish through the years, and with the exception of a few I’ve been able to recover them fully.