Yay!! My new Altums!

[nacra99]

Looks like purigen will have to wait......
Some of the new guys seem to be developing lesions.......

damn... it's happening all over again!!!!
=(

[szidlon]

Sorry they're giving you grief :sad: . Keep us updated on their status, I know there's not a lot proven methods for dealing with Altums and the problems you encounter with them, but the folks at www.finarama.com have some of the best suggestions. If you're not registered with them, it can take a while to be activated.

[nacra99]

Sad... i lost one... Barely 48 hrs after noticing the lesions, the fish croaked. Fins all rotted away and lesions all over.

Yeah.. i'm on finarama. I've been reading up like crazee. Seems like ther's still a debate as to what this Altum plague is all about and there is no one particular treatments is effective for everybody.

On last year's batch, suspecting columnaris, i used gram negative antibiotics. Lost all of them but one. This year i noticed that Dan V treated a particularly bad case with triple dose of Meth Blue and it cleared up the fuzzies, so i'm giving mine the same treatment. Finger's crossed....

[nacra99]

Coupla pics....

The water is blue from a single dose of Meth Blue. I'm doing 50% WCs every day coz the Meth Blue probably killed off all my biological filtration. Hopefully the early detection will help with the prognosis.

This guy has lesions on his forehead:



This one had a chunk of dorsal waste away real quick and lesions appearing on his body.

[wesleydnunder]

Sorry you're havin' troubles nacra. Those fish sure came in pretty. Good luck!

Mark

[szidlon]

Are they still eating well? If they are, this is what I did with my then tiny ones, last year. I took frozen bloodworms, thawed them out enough to drain most of the fluid off, then added Gel-Tek UltraCure PX and Gel-Tek UltraCure BX to the bloodworms and refroze them and fed them several times a day (dried bw's would absorb and hold more med's if they will eat them) . Since they they were so small I chopped or sliced the bw's to the appropriate size. It looks like yours wouldn't need any slicing and dicing of their food. I also kept the tank dosed with MelaFix, I don't know that it helped the Altums any, but it sure made me feel better. This worked for me (and the Altums). I lost three of twelve a day or so after I got them, but that was expected. I lost them before any symptoms of disease appeared so I assumed it was from transport issues or just nature taking it's course. These guys/gals were really small, mostly nickel to a little smaller in size. They started looking like they were morphing into Mono's and it happened extremely fast, it was as if their fins were literally melting away as I watched, but I managed to save all nine that were remaining and still have them to this day. It took a while for their fins to grow back, and not all of them are perfect, but they are still awesome to watch. Mine are in Houston, well Katy, tap water, which is like liquid rock, I never made any attempt to adjust the ph of their captive environment to their natural habitat, but then, they were very young and adapted quickly.

Good luck and let us know how they're doing. The above is the sum total of all I know about treating Altum diseases.

[nacra99]

Well.. it's been 2 months since they arrived and a month and a half since my guys caught the "altum bug". I lost one, but thanks to the guys from finarama and everyone who gave me free meds and advice... they are much much much better.

So... time for picture update

Here they are now...


In their 75 gal home....


In case you are wondering.. the water is brown from filtering aged water through a peat bomb for a coupla days.....


And if you are wondering about about the pH...... "Sweet and Low"