Hi Guys,

I have just noticed that my Ocalatus Gold male stopped eating and is hiding in his shell all day long. He looks normal so far.

He was just breeding a few days ago. In the same tank there is my female Ocelatus Gold with fry and a few other fish.

I am not sure what happened to him. No fish seems to bother him, so I guess he has some intestinal problems.

What do you suggest I do? I don't want to stress him out too much by moving him to another tank and I can't use some strong medication because I have fry in the tank, as well as some catfishes and 1 goby cichlid, a few paracyprochromis nigripilis.

Fish stop eating for alot of different reasons, most of the time because they are sick. It doesn't always mean bloat.

Since you can't treat the tank with medication due to the fry, I would try adding some epsom salt at 1 cup per 100G of water to see if this would help flush the intestines and solve the problem.

With not eating being the only symptom, it would be very difficult to determine a good medication to use.

Kim

Hi Kim,

Thank you very much for your reply to my post.

He is still not eating and mostly hiding in his shell.

In the same tank beside the female with very small and slightly bigger fry I have 4 Cory fish, 1 algae eater, 5 Paracyprochromis Nigripilis, 2 Multipunctatus cats and 1 goby cichlid.

This is 32 gallons tank with some rocks, shells and live plants. Yesterday I have added about 20 tsp. of salt. Today I also put into the tank a little bow with fine sand, since I heard it might help my Ocelatus to clean his intestines if he would eat it, but he didn't like to eat any. Normally this fish occasionally eats sand and it is supposed to help to clean the intestines.

I guess I would have to change some water again before adding Epson salt. Is it OK to add Epson salt if there is already some sea salt in the water?

Are you sure Epson salt is safe for all other fish in the tank, especially for the fry? Also if it is laxative, won't it stress too much all other fish, especially Ocelatus female, which is already pretty busy taking care of all the babies by herself?

I guess the best option would be to move the male to another tank. At the moment all my tanks are full of other fish - mostly young cichlids, or maybe I will be able to sell some. I will try to move fish around to make some space for Ocelatus, if possible, if it is not safe to treat him in the tank where he is now.

Do you know what is the proportion of Epson salt in tsp. per gallon? It would be easier to calculate it this way.

Is it OK for plants? I wouldn't like to kill all my plants while I treat him.

Thank you very much for all your help and I am open to other suggestions,

Renata

we wont know for sure whats wrong with your occie.
i have a breeding pair in my 5G with fry and i sometimes put some aquarium salt to it. i dont put espom salt because i never seemed to find any.

can you take a video of him? i would like to see what hes doing

The epsom salt shouldn't hurt your fry. As a laxative, it is very mild, and I've never seen any fish have an adverse reaction to it.

A 32G tank would require 1/3 cup of epsom salt.

I really wouldn't know what to tell you to treat the male with if you did remove him from the tank. As I said before, when fish stop eating, they are usually sick or stressed. Without any other symptoms, it would all be guesswork.

The epsom salt is the least invasive thing that I can think of to do. The sea salt was a good idea, as well.

Kim

Hi guys,

Thank you very much for your replies and sorry for the delay with my reply, but for some reason I am not getting notifications that I got replies to my topic.

Yesterday I have decided to move my Ocelatus to another tank. I have to move some fish around to make space for him. Now he is in my 4 gallons with some gravel, few syntetic and a few real plants. He got 4.5 teaspoons of Epson salt and Parasite Clear from Jungle. Yesterday he was mostly hiding in the shell and today morning as well, now I see him seating in the ceramic pot. He doesn’t look too good. Birthing hard. The abdomen yesterday was slightly enlarged, particularly beside vent area (not much, just a little bit). Now it seems more flat.

I don't have video camera, just video option on my digital camera. Videos made using this camera are of very poor quality and I am afraid since in this tank is not much light, it won’t work. Also I am not sure how to add pictures or video to the posts? Please let me know. Thank you for all your help.

You can upload your pics to a photo host, such as Photobucket. Then you just copy and paste the img link below the pic into your thread here.

Other than keeping the water pristine and doing what you're doing, I really can't think of anything else you can do. If his tummy was distended and now it isn't, the epsom salt may have resolved the problem.

Is he refusing food?

Any other outward signs of problems? How is his colour?

Kim

Hi Guys,

Just to keep you posted about my Ocelatus, unfortunately he died about 2 weeks ago. Before he died, I have moved him to 5 gallons and treated him with Epson salt and Jungle Parasite Clear, but it didn't help at all and he died after about 3 days of his stay in this tank.

Poor female was left alone with several fry. She was searching for him and then gave up. She is pretty sad. She has even spent one night in his shell and seemed waiting for him and then grieving when she understood he will never come back.

Now she has also lost all fry, except one, which I think is still somewhere in the tank. She was in 32 gallons, but there were some Cory fish, and a few other catfishes, as well as 5 Paracyprochromis Nigripilis. The fry was too small to move. I was hoping at least a few will survive. Other fish mostly stay away from Ocelatus’s area, except Cory fish, which kept jumping in there. I have build a fence to protect the babies and the fry seem to be fine for a while, but at a certain age - maybe about 2-3 weeks old, they didn't hide in the shell anymore and I guess were killed or eaten one by one. I have seen a few with spines broken. So I have moved the last few with the mother to another tank - 12 gallons with only one little Cory fish and a few Ottos in there. One fry died within the next 2 days, the last one I have seen still alive yesterday, so hopefully this one will survive. It is about 5 days since I have moved them in there.

The female continue looking rather sad, so I plan to buy a new male for her and maybe one more female, just to bring some more action into this tank.

So now I am very sorry I have moved my Ocalatus to 32 gallons about a month ago since I have lost not only my Ocelatus male, but also almost all fry. If I only new they were breeding. They were just seating each of them in one corner of the tank and occasionally meeting for a short moment. I would never guess they were breeding. I have moved them because I thought they were not happy in there. I would know better the next time. We learn from our mistakes and I have told you this story, so maybe at least you can keep your Ocelatus alive. They are so interesting little fish.

I'm sorry you lost them!

Often, when they stop eating, there isn't much we can do. I find that it's almost impossible to save a fish once they refuse food, and the meds work much better if they are ingested.

I can appreciate your passion for the little occies! Definitely one of my favourite shell dwellers!

Kim

Sorry to hear about your loss!

I agree with Kim about treating a fish who has refused to eat!

The medications we use is probably more beneficial to those
fish in the tank who haven't come down with bloat or digestive disorders!

Hope you can find some more occies for your tank!

im sorry to hear about your loss
it gets you mad because you couldnt help them out sooner dumb dumb
ive done it lots of times. im slow with things so when it happens, it happens and i usually cant save them.

My Gracilis i have in my tank had parasites and 1 of them died.
3 of them are looking good so far. i put them in with some malawi's(woo)

i got some yellowfin fry right now if you want some, but i wouldnt breed them with golds. 2 different occies.

my female occie hates my male On the Floor Laughing
she bites his face(not hard)
she just doesnt want him near her fry.

Thank you very much for your reply. I am sorry to hear one of your fish died.
I hope others will be OK.

The problem with my Ocalatus was that I was even not sure he was sick for a while. He looked perfectly fine, at least for a week since he has stopped eating. At the beginning I thought maybe he is just stressed out or got tired because of taking care of the fry.

My pair of Ocelatus seemed to go very well together. They were a perfect couple both taking care of the fry and sharing responsibilities. The female had most of the fry with her, but the male had a few as well - at lease 6-8 and he was taking a very good care of them till he got sick. Each one of them usually stayed close to their own shells, but occasionally they were meeting to "discuss" things and maybe just to say “hello” to each other. It was very interesting to watch this little family.

I hope I will be able to find another partner for my Ocelatus female as good as the last one and hopefully this one will be perfectly healthy. In fact I plan to buy one very soon and I will probably buy one more female. I think this fish might feel better in a bigger group.

Thank you for your offer regarding other kind of Ocelatus, but I don't think I have space for another colony and I don't want to mix them up.

my occies also do that as well.
the fry maybe ventures out too far? and the male just takes care of them?

i have no space for any fish anymore.
im buying too many impulse buys these days.
ive bought 2 hybrids for 10$ this week!
one of my worst impulse buys. but they were just too cute to resist..
it was a malawi lab thing. pure yellow. really small.. little eyes that just begged to take him home with me.

Just wanted to say I was sorry to hear about your Ollecatus. We all know that awful feeling of losing a fish we really like, and realizing that one of our decisions may have played a role in what went wrong.

On the other hand, we also bring lots and lots of fish into happy healthy predator-free food-rich lives who would otherwise never have been born... it's just hard to think of it that way when we've just lost a favorite.

Don