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I've just has a near-wipeout of m,y new Arulius Barbs, and I can't for the life of me think what on Earth could have happened.

Yesterday, they were all swimming happily around the aquarium, chomping on their food as per usual, only today I come down and find that three are dead, a fourth is on the gravel looking as if it's not long for this world, and a fifth is missing altogether. I'm now left with just ONE Arulius Barb out of a shoal of six - that's £10 down the toilet in less than a week.

The bizarre part of all this is, NOTHING appeared to be wrong yesterday, they were milling about happily munching on their food, and showed NO signs of disease AT ALL. indeed, the one that's dying now doesn't have any obvious wounds, it's still showing excellent colour, and it doesn't have any fungus on it or white spots, but for the fact that it's lying on the gravel slowly expiring, you wouldn't think there was anything wrong with it judging by the body colour.

Furthermore, the water can't be toxic, because if it was, my SAEs would also be expiring, but they're showing NO signs of stress whatsoever. If anything, they're happier looking now than they've been for a while.

Just WHAT has gone wrong here?

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Hey Cali,

Sorry to hear about your losses.

Just how new is new? You probably already thought of this, but when I hear of new fish dying with no outward signs as to why, my first instinct is immediately to say it's some kind of acclimation shock, be it from pH, temperature, or what have you.

ITs been close to a week- right??? i think its been to long for those...

wish I had some answers for you Cali'..Im clueless

Edit to add- Hoave you daone anything- a water change, ect...??? Something that could change something in the tank??

Water change was performed 2 days prior to their arrival, so if the water change was going to cause problems, it would have caused problems with the SAEs. They're fine though. So I know it isn't the water company messing about with aluminium sulphate again, because that would have wiped out the fish in both tanks, because both tanks had water changes at the same time.

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Hi,
While it could have been the water company as before,
this time I suspect the question was relative to any
differences between the water at the LFS and the water
in your tanks that the fish are accustomed to? High
nitrate, off pH, etc?

Like Joe mentions, this kind of situation would indicate
differences in the water between the two locations and
and/or a problem in the acclimation process.

Frank

-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

If I'd had problems acclimatising fish from that location before, I'd be tempted to agree, Frank, but this is the first time I've had a disaster like this happen to stock from that location in something like 5 years of dealing with them. I got my SAEs from them originally, and they settled in without too much trouble, I've had Panda Corys from them that settled in nicely, and I've had Flag Fish from them that settled in nicely too.

Needless to say, this one is a serious puzzle. And I'm wondering if my last remaining Arulius Barb turned psycho and saw off the others while I wasn't watching, in much the same way as my Beckford's Pencil Fish turned into the characin version of Melanochromis chipokae once they settled in. Something weird has happened here, and I'm scratching my head trying to figure out a solution to this one.

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

I did a google search, all I could find was that might help is as follows.

1- the need highly aerated water
2- they dont do well if not between 66-76 degrees F
3- If you ended up with more males than females they can fight like crazy 1m/3-4 f prefered ratio
4- They like lots of room, 40-55 galls is prefered

my guess not knowing tank specifics is either aration and temp, or not enough room, and to many males..

Considering you still have 1, that is doing fine- Id guess you had to many males, and not enough room.

Ah. Looks like number 3 may well have caught me out. Because it was a bit difficult to differentiate between the sexes, and I also assumed that during the juvenile stage, they wouldn't exhibit much sexual dimorphism anyway.

Oh lovely. Looks like I ended up with another batch of "peaceful shoaling fishes" that ended up doing the Melanochromis chipokae number, like my psychotic Pencil Fishes did a while back.

Won't be getting those again for a while.

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

yea id get odesa barbs they are cool fish and a freind of mine got his to breed in his 55 gallon heavily planted tank.