Adding and Establishing Demasoni

I'm working back through the log today, with a really happy, successful, beautiful, and constantly breeding colony of 18 of my dream fish.  But it certainly took a lot of losses to get there.

We really strongly believe that the losses we had with our demasoni were due to bloat.  I'm sure there was stress involved, whether from traveling, aggression, or a combination of factors; however, none of the losses we experienced were a directresult of aggression.  The dead fish didn't have nipped fins or missing scaled that suggested they'd been beaten up.  When we finally caught and isolated an ailing fish, we were able to really clearly observe all the textbook bloat systems.

From that time on, we dosed with Metro, and that prevented bloat from spreading to any additional demasoni.  We had a couple more isolated losses quickly, presumably fish who were already deep into the stages.

We had the demasoni in the tank with yellow labs, and I was scared that if it was bloat, it would spread to them.  However, the labs never showed any sign of infection and 100% survived.

After we stopped losing fish, we topped back up our numbers, and the colony has thrived wonderfully ever since.

We see many posts in the fish world from people in the early loss stages of trying to keep demasoni.  We always pass on the advice on how much metro helped us.  Whether it's the expense of medicating or a philosophical orientation against using various chemicals/compounds in fishkeeping, I don't know, but no one seems to believe us that using Met instantly turned our losses around.  I know for my part, I wish I had known in time to save more fish.

Details after the jump.




12.30.2010
Added 20 demasoni
Added peacock back from 75 gallon tank

1.2.2011
70% water change
1 demasoni died

1.3.2011
NO3 = 80ppm
70% water change
NO3 = 20ppm

1.4.2011
NO3 = 20ppm

1.6.2011
50% water change

1.8.2011
50% water change

1.16.2011
Returned to once-weekly water change regimen

1.29.2011
1 demasoni died (awhile)

1.30.2011
1 demasoni dead

1.31.2011
First demasoni holding

2.4.2011
1 demasoni dead (a good while)

2.7.2011
1 demasoni dead

2.12.2011
2 demasoni dead
Moved holding demasoni to 20Long (also holding yellow lab)
Moved subdominant demasoni to 20Long

2.13.2011
Subdominant male died overnight
Holding girl died in the afternoon
Fed metro coated food
Ran diatomic filter 1.5 hours

2.14.2011
pH = 8.0
NH3 = 0ppm
NO2 = 0ppm
NO3 = 20-40ppm
(It's not the water)

2.16.2011
1 demasoni dead (awhile)

2.18.2011
Added 6 demasoni

2.20.2011
Holding lab spit labs + demasoni
1 demasoni died (less than 1 day)

2.22.2011
1 demasoni dead

2.24.2011
Temperature to 82
750 mg Metro
5tbsp Epsom

2.25.2011
1 demasoni dead
2tbsp Epsom

2.26.2011
50% water change
750 mg Metro
5tbsp Epsom

2.27.2011
Moved sick demasoni to 2.5 gallon
Quarter tablet of Clout in 2.5 gallon
Sick demasoni died, clear bloat symptoms

2.28.2011
50% water change
750 mg Metro

3.2.2011
50% water change
750 mg Metro
5tbsp Epsom

3.5.2011
50% water change
750 mg Metro
1 demasoni dead (awhile)

3.6.2011
1 demasoni dead (recent)

3.7.2011
40% water change

3.12.2011
Added 4 demasoni
50% water change

3.19.2011
1 demasoni dead

From this time, we did not experience any more demasoni losses.  From this period, we had more and more demasoni holding, and got to the steady state we experience today where in our colony of 18 fish, there are always 2-4 females holding fry.

We did one more full course of Metro to ensure we had gotten rid of bloat.

3.26.2011
50% water change
750 mg Metro

3.28.2011
750 mg Metro

3.30.2011
750 mg Metro

4.2.2011
50% water change

6.20.2011
Added 6 demasoni (born 2.20.2011)