[Killietalk] Female Aphyosemion Australe Chololate won't eat

[Rich S <richstruck at hotmail_com>]

Sorry this is so long but I thought it was a good idea to be as complete as possible.

I received a beautiful pair of Aphyosemion  Australe  Chololate on December 31. For the first few days they both ate white worms just fine and they were both very active. Suddenly, the female stopped eating and both fish started to hide a lot.  For a few days she continued to taste food but she would spit it out and finally she even quit doing that.

On Jan 7, I checked their water and was surprised to see that the ammonia level was about 1pp. I was surprised because I do *tons* of small water changes and our tap water had previously been okay for fish (albeit with a high ph).  I re-checked our tap water and found that it was high in ammonia (1ppm) so I'm guessing a chloramine spike was responsible for stressing the fish. I always treat the water with Stress Coat but I think that got rid of the chlorine and left the ammonia behind.

I immediately changed 50% of their water with RO water. Later that night I did more and more water changes with carbon filtered tap water which is totally free of chloramine.  After a few days the male was more active and eating well but the female is still hiding a lot and she is still not eating. As far as I know she hasn't eaten since about the 4th or 5th of January so clearly something is still wrong.

She has rejected the following foods:

Live bbs
Live white worms
Live vinegar eels
Two kinds of flakes
Frozen brine shrimp
Frozen mysis shrimp
Frozen bloodworms
Frozen daphnia
Freeze dried tubifex worms

I've been using a clear turkey baster to get the food to within an inch of her so it isn't as if she isn't seeing it, she is just ignoring it. I try to feed her 3 times a day because I'm worried about her but it hasn't done any good.

The temperature in their tank is a steady 76 degrees and I do water changes with good, filtered water daily. I'm pretty confident that the water quality issue has been solved.  They are in a 5.5 gallon aquarium with a Clear Free corner filter, a fake hunk of driftwood, and a fake plant.  The lighting is an 8 watt florescent light about 12 to 14 inches above the tank; it doesn't look like it is too bright but I don't know for sure.

On the bright side, she has been a bit more active over the last 2 days but her color is changing a bit so I think that might be a bad sign.

I don't see any obvious sign of disease or anything like that and I don't know how old she is.

The male is eating just fine by the way.

What can I do for her?

Thanks,

Rich



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