# Blue Acara what could be wrong???



## bigaluk (Dec 8, 2013)

Hi everyone

Recently our single female Blue Acara cichlid has been behaving very strangely.

Originally we purchased a breeding pair that had bonded and they got on really well together and would follow each other happily around our tank, but after 8 weeks we found the male had died overnight from an unknown cause. After seeking advice from our local aquarium we then decided that it would be best that we wouldn't find her a mate and have kept her as a single Blue Acara.

Since losing her partner around 8 months ago she has always seemed to be contented and happy and we have never actually seen her acting aggressively towards her tank mates,

Her tank mates are 4 long fin Zebra Danios, 2 Head & taillight Tetra, 4 Buenos Aires Tetras and 5 Albino Corydoras Catfish, 2 Otocinclus

Our tank is a Juwel Lido 120litre ( 30 gallon), with the standard bioflow 3.0 and a Tetra Tec Ex700 external canister filter, air stone.

All the chemical tests are fine... and I also have a digital seneye which also says everything is fine

0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrite, 20 Nitrate

Tank has been fully cycled for over 11 months

PH 7.68 Temp 25.6c

About two months ago she started behaving rather strange, just laying on the bottom and resting, Then swimming very erratically with a slightly sinking pattern and then retreating to her half a coconut cave that she has had for over 3 months and spending most of the time just hiding in it and laying on the floor inside.

1 month ago we then found some white eggs that had been deposited over our Juwel digital thermometer at the bottom of the tank.

We counted them and it totalled about 20 eggs, then a few days later another 10, then a few more a week or so later. But the egg laying has now stopped.

She then turned to very white colour (normally she is a blue/grey) but has since turned back to her original colour. But if i do any cleaning of the tank she gets very stressed and goes very white again.

She is still feeding but only if we actually target cichlid sinking pellets just outside her coconut cave opening, she then zooms out takes a few mouthfuls and then retreats for the rest of the day. If we dont do any target feeding she will not come out to feed. We will be going away for around two weeks soon and will be using an automatic feeder but are worried that she will starve to death without our targeted feeding.

We feed her rift lake green cichlid pellets & Spirulina Flakes.

She is still hardly swimming and spends 99% of the day in her Coconut cave.

We are starting to get very concerned now for her well-being.

any advice would be great!

Thanks


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## FedEXguy (Feb 24, 2005)

I wish I could be more helpful, but it sounds like maybe an internal parasite? I would post this over in the illness sub-forum, you may get better responses over there. If you can get a picture, that is helpful. I can say that a healthy fish would be ok with a 2-week food fast, but I don't know how a sickly one would fair.


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## rgr4475 (Mar 19, 2008)

Moved and left a shadow topic in place in the Central forum to maximize views. Good luck!


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