what temp. should troph's be in?

[JGUERRA]

well i had 2 trophs not sure what type, they were orangish yellowish body with orange on top fin they were doing great all day and then in the morning i found them dead? the temp was at 86 is that too high for them??


thanks

jose

[eklikewhoa]

Depends on how fast it got there.... My tank has ran at 86-88 before for a length of time with no problems.

Give us some more info about the fish, tank, etc.

[CichlidFan]

Sorry to hear about that jose, did you have other fish in the tank with them?

CF

[geoff_tropheus]

I would not want to run that high unless I had some serious oxygenation happening.

Like most other Cichlids, typical 76 to 82 is normal

[geoff_tropheus]

How long have you kept the fish, and do you have any other water parameters you could post?

[JGUERRA]

I had several cichlids in the tank everything was fine the temp was like that all day no jump in temp.. I notice they would swim around then stop and chill at the bottom and wouldn't move their side fins just chill on the sand.. do they need to be in constant current to be okay? At the lfs there wasn't any current they were very healthy and colorful.. I dnt know what could've gone wrong.? They were my first trophs and I was exited to take em home.. man hopefully ya'll can help me find out what was wrong..

[JGUERRA]

Well the ph I think was at around 6.5-7.0 and the ammonia was almost at 0 the rest I haven't check but I think they weren't used to the warmer temp. I floated the bag they were in about 20 minutes and when I found them dead they had there mouths open but still very colorful.

[geoff_tropheus]

When I first get new Tropheus, I check the pH is at where I'm getting them.

You need to have the pH in the new home within 0.5 or less, or they can get quickly affected by the difference.

When they get sick they typically sit on bottom or very top usually resting on the bottom substrate not wanting to move.

[geoff_tropheus]

Tropheus need a pH of higher than 7.0 to live. Typically most people keeping Tropheus keep them in a higher pH of 8.0 or more.

The LFS probably had a mid 7.0's pH.

HAving dropped into Acidic water is most likely the issue.

What you can do, when you see them sitting on bottom, is 50% waterchange and add extra water movement. You need to have atleast 10X filtration turnover in the tank as typical shooting point.

Do you know what your water turnover in the tank is currently at, and would you consider your tank crowded or not?

[cichlid1409]

+1 on the ph . too low for trophs.

[eklikewhoa]

I think at that temp you would want some flow or current in the tank to keep from having stagnant areas.

The trophs being new additions to the tank and normally kept in totally different parameters succumbed to poor acclimation.

The store the tank probably didn't have current in the tank but I'm sure the water was not as warm as your tank so it's hard to compare.

Now with your pH that is pretty low for africans for the most part and pretty low for trophs but I'm guessing these are juvis which are probably accustomed to lower then their norm pH. Being a LFS I would assume they do not go any further then treat their tap water with some dechlor or age their water so for the most part it's probably good ole hard tap water which is pretty decent in pH so with the change from the LFS to your tank that could have done them in as well.

[JGUERRA]

Man this sucks.. I guess the ph might have been diff at the lfs.. the chinese guy there kept calling them peacocks cichlids so he sold them to me for $10 each but I knew they were trophs and I told him and he said no lol it was a lfs on scarsdale by 45 south its in the middle of a shopping center he had duboisies for $50 and he said that the ones I got were peacock cichlids lol ..... I guess next time ill know what to do before I add them in the tank.. good thing I only got 2

[eklikewhoa]

That's the one that curses everyone out right?

[geoff_tropheus]

When keeping Trophs never let the pH get acidic.

When your getting trophs you need to acclimate and even quarantine. I do this on all my Trophs.

The Pasadena Water is roughly 7.6-7.8 but it is not buffered at all. It has a KH of about 5 deg, which basically means if you dont buffer, even with a weekly waterchange the pH goes into low 7.0's and if you go more than 2 weeks its acidic or near it.

[JGUERRA]

its an old hard deaded old chinese man and theres a very short chinese lady too.. they were in my 110 gl tall tank and i had an emperor 400, one of those magnum canisters you hang on back and a eheim 2229 professional and a small power head inside.