[venustus19]

i had a bit of a fishcastrophy over the holiday weekend... i was out of town and my heater must have went bad, because when i got home, i found 11 0f my 19 fish dead. 4 of the 5 labs, 4 of the 5 acei, a frontosa, a phenechilous, and a BN pleco... the survivers were 5 lethrinops, 1 lab, 1 acei, and my common pleco... my water temp was around 88-90 degrees.

can/should the labs and acei stay a single fish, or should i start thinking about finding 4 more of each to replace my deceased... just trying to figure out what to do with the tank now that i lost more than half of my stock. just leave it so they have more room to swim, or pack it back full with labs and acei.

thanks

 

[Doane]

There are, from what I understand, very few fish in Lake Malawi that do very well on their own. While its entirely possible to keep one specimen, they will never look as good as they do when in a group. In my opinion, you need to also look at all other parameters to decide what happened. Was the heater broken? What were the conditions of the water? What have you done to prevent this to happening from your other fish?

Keep us posted.

Patrick

 

[748johnd]

I have both labs and acei and they would probably do okay alone, but I think they would be happier in groups. If it were me, I would replace the lost ones.

 

[venustus19]

ya, i think i am eventually gonna replace the deceased... as far as my heater goes... not sure what i am gonna due... right now, i just have 2 smaller heaters in there now... but my water parameters were fine... ammonia was high, but that was because i had 11 dead fish in there for however long... after i took out dead fish, did a water change, i did another parameter test, and water was fine... so all it was was my heater i assume... the temp in the tank was 88-90 degrees, when i fished the dead ones out... so, my guess, is that they pretty much boiled to death. i left the heater in a bucket for a couple days, and it never shut off... so i am thinking it was broken, because i had it set at like 78 degrees.
thanks for the replies guys.