# Garra flavatra dying



## Hanuman (25 Feb 2022)

Has anyone kept Panda garra (Flavatra) fish for any meaningful amount of time in <0.5/1dKH? I have lost half the population in a matter of 1 month. It seems to coincide with the changing of all my filter cartridges including the RO membrane which is the one taking care of KH. All other fish (rasboras, tetras neons, flying foxes and ottos) are doing just fine including all shrimps. I have not noted any disease on them and they seem to be eating just fine so I really have no clue what is happening. I won't detail all other water parameters as they are all in check. 60% WC weekly. Water is pristine with a TDS of ~210ppm by week end. APT E dosed, remin at Ca:Mg ~ 20ppm:6.67ppm. (~3:1) so far.


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## John q (25 Feb 2022)

Hi Hanuman,
If it helps I have 4 Garra, I got them in September 2020. Tank parameters are 1dkh 2~3dgh. Tds range 170 ~ 220ppm (I've had this up to 300ppm under ei dosing) Tank ph 7.2 ~ 6.4. Ca:Mg~ 9ppm:3.5ppm. Temp 25.4 Celsius. Lots of flow and high surface agitation.

Not suggesting any of the above is why mine are seemingly very healthy but hopefully answers your inquiry regards dkh.

Edit: All above parameters have deviated slightly over the last 17 months but not by much.


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## Hanuman (25 Feb 2022)

Everything looks pretty similar except for the temperature but I very much doubt that is the issue.
Does your KH dip below 1? In my case when I measured by week end it was sub 0.5 perhaps even close to 0.


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## John q (25 Feb 2022)

Hanuman said:


> Does your KH dip below 1?


Not sure, I haven't tested it in a long while. My 1dkh assumption is based off tap water report. I have lots of vallisneria in the tank so it could well be lower than that. I'll blow the dust off the test kit and do a test later on this afternoon.


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## MirandaB (25 Feb 2022)

Don't know how big your tank is @Hanuman but they can be quite aggressive  with each other,have you noticed any fighting,?
I've had a couple of friends try to keep several and they've ended up with the others being killed off.


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## John q (25 Feb 2022)

MirandaB said:


> they can be quite aggressive


Indeed, mine used to have some pretty fierce fights when they were first introduced. This settles down once one of them establishes dominance in the tank.


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## Hanuman (25 Feb 2022)

MirandaB said:


> Don't know how big your tank is @Hanuman but they can be quite aggressive  with each other,have you noticed any fighting,?
> I've had a couple of friends try to keep several and they've ended up with the others being killed off.


It's a 90cm with plenty of plants so there is plenty of room for the 10 I had. Only 5 left and 1 is not looking too good now. Very thin. I never saw any aggression among them although I have seen some videos and read it can happen. Honestly I doubt it's a fighting problem though. They were all doing fine since October last year and it all started going south for the past month. It's too many deaths in too little time for just a fighting issue.
What I noticed is that they start acting strangely a few days before dying. They will kind of flip over like if they were dying and be like this for some time. Then suddenly they go crazy and swing erratically, then stop. Then they will be "fine" until it happens again. When doing WC last Friday 1 had died very recently and was already being a banquet for the planaria and the other was about to.


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## Conort2 (25 Feb 2022)

Hanuman said:


> It's a 90cm with plenty of plants so there is plenty of room for the 10 I had. Only 5 left and 1 is not looking too good now. Very thin. I never saw any aggression among them although I have seen some videos and read it can happen. Honestly I doubt it's a fighting problem though. They were all doing fine since October last year and it all started going south for the past month. It's too many deaths in too little time for just a fighting issue.
> What I noticed is that they start acting strangely a few days before dying. They will kind of flip over like if they were dying and be like this for some time. Then suddenly they go crazy and swing erratically, then stop. Then they will be "fine" until it happens again. When doing WC last Friday 1 had died very recently and was already being a banquet for the planaria and the other was about to.


What’s your flow and oxygen levels like? They’re a fish from fast flowing streams so need these conditions. They probably like it a fair bit harder then you have it too. They’re from Myanmar where I believe a lot of the streams contain harder water. 

I always found them to be extremely hardy boisterous fish, however I used to keep them in London tap water which is extremely differrent to your conditions.

Cheers


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## Hanuman (25 Feb 2022)

Conort2 said:


> What’s your flow and oxygen levels like? They’re a fish from fast flowing streams so need these conditions. They probably like it a fair bit harder then you have it too.


These fish although liking streams and rapid flow are also found in stagnant pools during the dry season in Myanmar which can last several months.
Oxygenation on the tank is well beyond standard me thinks. Loads of surface agitation 24/7 + skimmer 24/7 + Chihiros "anti algae" bubbler that I use exclusively to further increase oxygenation + 300L/h intank pump + 2000L/h canister filter (realistically 1000L or a bit less). If that's not enough oxygen for them they should go find another home. 😂


Conort2 said:


> They’re from Myanmar where I believe a lot of the streams contain harder water.


That's what I was trying to research earlier to find information on those rivers alkalinity but so far no luck.


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## Conort2 (25 Feb 2022)

Have you got any pictures of them?


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## Hanuman (25 Feb 2022)

Dead or alive?


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## Conort2 (25 Feb 2022)

Both would be good but alive to see the condition of your current Garra.


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## Hanuman (25 Feb 2022)

They all look pretty much the same except for one that is very thin. I thought he would die before the others but he is still alive. I don't think for long though. I'll try to get a picture later when I get home.


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## Conort2 (25 Feb 2022)

Hanuman said:


> View attachment 183414 View attachment 183416
> They all look pretty much the same except for one that is very thin. I thought he would die before the others but he is still alive. I don't think for long though. I'll try to get a picture later when I get home.


They look like pretty healthy young garra to me, bizarre how they are fine then all of a sudden die.


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## Hanuman (25 Feb 2022)

Yes and they don't have any obvious visible disease, like fungal infections or the like etc. My only 2 hypothesis are:
1. either KH is too low; or
2. since they spend a lot of time on the substrate, could they be infected by planaria eating them alive from the inside?


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## PARAGUAY (25 Feb 2022)

Just to comment as l don't keep these fish . Garra finding themselves in stagnant pools in the dry season of course not by choice but not ideal so we don't know the mortality rate. Probably a lot die before the dry season ends? I remember l think it was Neil Monks in PFKmagazine setting a ideal tank up as l remember long shallow tank pebbles 3 powerheads near substrate at on end  piped under substrate to the opposite end for intake. The flow very fierce. MD Marc Davis seem's to successfully keep them in very soft water


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## John q (25 Feb 2022)

Hanuman said:


> That's what I was trying to research earlier to find information on those rivers alkalinity but so far no luck.


I suspect the waters these naturally inhabit are either soft or medium. An article written in 2009 by practical fishkeeping (Panda garra, Garra flavatra) asked Dr Sven Kullander what the water parameters were; here's his reply. 

Did you record water chemistry parameters?

I used to do that for many years, but it was a pain to carry extra stuff and get dubious recordings.

During low water you get sedimentation and in some places leakages from soil will provide some conductivity.

Temperatures rise on sunny days, but probably not so much in the shaded flavatra biotopes. During high water, small streams carry only rain water, so may be totally distilled.


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## Hanuman (25 Feb 2022)

PARAGUAY said:


> Garra finding themselves in stagnant pools in the dry season of course not by choice but not ideal so we don't know the mortality rate. Probably a lot die before the dry season ends?


Well it's part of their habitat. Not sure if many die or not but they do live in slow flowing streams as well. They are not exclusively high flow fish and can survive in slow/moderate flow year round it seems. Most people keeping these fish don't have fast flow shallow tanks and their fish seem to live fine.
And it's not like I don't have flow in the tank. I see them going in the pipes sometimes or surfing the flow of the intank pump.



PARAGUAY said:


> MD Marc Davis seem's to successfully keep them in very soft water


How soft?


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## Hanuman (25 Feb 2022)

@Conort2 
The skinny boy



2 guys.


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## Conort2 (25 Feb 2022)

Hanuman said:


> @Conort2
> The skinny boy
> View attachment 183420
> 2 guys.
> View attachment 183419


To be fair I was expecting the skinny one to look worse. They look to be in pretty good health. They are tiny and pretty young fish though which may mean they’re more fragile. These things do grow fast though and end up quite a stocky fish.


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## Hanuman (25 Feb 2022)

Conort2 said:


> To be fair I was expecting the skinny one to look worse.


It's the glass effect. He is in fact very skinny compared to all remaining ones. He doesn't look healthy. But it's the only one with that characteristic. All others that died were normally sized.


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## Conort2 (25 Feb 2022)

Hanuman said:


> It's the glass effect. He is in fact very skinny compared to all remaining ones. He doesn't look healthy. But it's the only one with that characteristic. All others that died were normally sized.


I’d probably recommend worming them then.


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## John q (25 Feb 2022)

John q said:


> I'll blow the dust off the test kit and do a test later on this afternoon.


Only a dip strip so read what you will into the result. Picture taken within 10 seconds of dipping. Maybe had a slight tint of green when I initially pulled it out of tank 🤔




Probably explains why I stopped testing the water, lol. I'm guessing somewhere between 0 and 1???


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## Hanuman (25 Feb 2022)

Conort2 said:


> I’d probably recommend worming them then.


What does this mean? You mean deworming? What product would you recommend? I have some General Cure from API. Should that work? I have no quarantaine tank so I guess I will have to treat the whole tank.


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## Hanuman (25 Feb 2022)

John q said:


> Only a dip strip so read what you will into the result. Picture taken within 10 seconds of dipping. Maybe had a slight tint of green when I initially pulled it out of tank 🤔
> Probably explains why I stopped testing the water, lol. I'm guessing somewhere between 0 and 1???


Interesting. If that's the case then maybe the KH is not the issue.


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## jaypeecee (25 Feb 2022)

Hi @Hanuman

I used to keep a pair of Panda Garras about a couple of years ago. Pretty much overnight, they were suddenly very unwell. Their bodies darkened significantly and they seemed to be paralyzed. The only water parameter that caused me some concern was potassium that, if memory serves me well, was around the 90 ppm mark. One other possibility is that they had eaten a tiny amount of Cyano that I later discovered. I will never know for sure what caused their sudden demise.

JPC


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## PARAGUAY (25 Feb 2022)

@Hanuman  your question MDs water not sure except it's soft everthing in his studio is low tech but he grows virtually most plants well ,due to the CO2 his water provides . Very low level of water column fertilizing.


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## Hanuman (26 Feb 2022)

jaypeecee said:


> if memory serves me well, was around the 90 ppm mark. One other possibility is that they had eaten a tiny amount of Cyano that I later discovered.


My K is at around 15ppm so it is certainly not that reason in my case. Cyano could indeed be another possibility. I know I have some but not visible most of the time. It usually starts appearing in some spots when temperature increases here, around March/April. I usually do treatments twice a year but who knows maybe they found some. 

Here is a short clip I made this morning. You can see the skinny boy acting strangely.


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## Conort2 (26 Feb 2022)

Hanuman said:


> What does this mean? You mean deworming? What product would you recommend? I have some General Cure from API. Should that work? I have no quarantaine tank so I guess I will have to treat the whole tank.


I don’t think we can get general cure in the uk and is something I’ve never used so can’t really comment although as it has praziquantel in it I’d assume it would work. I use something with flubendazole in it as I feel it’s not too harsh on the fish.


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## Conort2 (26 Feb 2022)

Hanuman said:


> My K is at around 15ppm so it is certainly not that reason in my case. Cyano could indeed be another possibility. I know I have some but not visible most of the time. It usually starts appearing in some spots when temperature increases here, around March/April. I usually do treatments twice a year but who knows maybe they found some.
> 
> Here is a short clip I made this morning. You can see the skinny boy acting strangely.



I’d definitely treat for parasites and go fro there, certainly something not right.


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## Hanuman (26 Feb 2022)

Conort2 said:


> I don’t think we can get general cure in the uk and is something I’ve never used so can’t really comment although as it has praziquantel in it I’d assume it would work. I use something with flubendazole in it as I feel it’s not too harsh on the fish.


It's the only one I have on hand right now so I treated the tank an hour ago. Let's see how that goes.


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## Hanuman (23 Mar 2022)

Here is the update.

I predict all will die. Lost two more. Only 3 left now. I treated the tank with General cure two weeks ago and I see no improvement whatsoever. One by one they exhibit the same behavior at some point. This is very disconcerting. Wondering if it could be an oxygenation problem. These fish stay most of the time at the bottom. Perhaps it's a specie that requires oxygenation beyond what most other fish require? But honestly I have hard time beleiving that. The tank has lots of surface agitation + chihiros electro bubble gagdet + skimmer + 2nd intank pump + plants producing oxygen in abundance during the day. I am at odds here.


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## PARAGUAY (23 Mar 2022)

The larger Fluval U series internal filters have a setting for bottom output sending the flow all across the substrate if you could borrow one or purchase one worth a try see how the fish respond


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## Conort2 (23 Mar 2022)

Hanuman said:


> Here is the update.
> 
> I predict all will die. Lost two more. Only 3 left now. I treated the tank with General cure two weeks ago and I see no improvement whatsoever. One by one they exhibit the same behavior at some point. This is very disconcerting. Wondering if it could be an oxygenation problem. These fish stay most of the time at the bottom. Perhaps it's a specie that requires oxygenation beyond what most other fish require? But honestly I have hard time beleiving that. The tank has lots of surface agitation + chihiros electro bubble gagdet + skimmer + 2nd intank pump + plants producing oxygen in abundance during the day. I am at odds here.


It’s very strange, when I had them they were extremely hardy. Even though they’re riverine fish I didn’t keep them under heavy flow/oxygenated conditions and had CO2. 

The fish in your previous photos look fine so it is a strange one.


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## Hanuman (23 Mar 2022)

@Conort2 Look at the video I posted above. That doesn't look normal. That's how all of them end up behaving at some point. I have no idea what is going on.


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## Conort2 (23 Mar 2022)

Hanuman said:


> @Conort2 Look at the video I posted above. That doesn't look normal. That's how all of them end up behaving at some point. I have no idea what is going on.


I meant your initial pictures, they appear to be chunky healthy little fish at first.


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## Hanuman (23 Mar 2022)

Conort2 said:


> I meant your initial pictures, they appear to be chunky healthy little fish at first.


Indeed.  They look good.



PARAGUAY said:


> The larger Fluval U series internal filters have a setting for bottom output sending the flow all across the substrate if you could borrow one or purchase one worth a try see how the fish respond


No Fluval filters where I live unfortunately. I tried repositioning the in-tank pump to direct surface water to the bottom since yesterday. Let's see.

Would you guys recommend I do a second round of treatment? I read and saw here and there that General Cure treatement needs to be carried out 2-3 weeks after the initial treatment.


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## Hanuman (23 May 2022)

Some update on this.

Out of 10, only 1 is now alive. He seems to be doing fine so far. What bothers me is that I still have no clue what the problem was which prevents me from having that fish sp again.


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## mibelle85 (12 Oct 2022)

Hey there @Hanuman. Michelle here from the states. I came across your post, as my panda garra suddenly seems to be going downhill quick. I was unaware, but I dosed my tank 2 days in a row with potassium. I guess it could be potassium poisoning, but tetra's, and otos seem to be fine. I have had him for roughly a year, happens to be my favorite little guy in the tank (fully planted rainbow tank, with one tetra and a couple otos and the panda) my plants were not growing so great, so my local fish store told me to dose potassium for 2 days. I'm just wondering if you have any idea what happened to yours? Sorry to hear about the loss of your other ones. Never a good feeling. Thanks for any input, Michelle.


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## sparkyweasel (12 Oct 2022)

Hi Michelle, and welcome!. 
It could just be coincidence that your Garra got sick just after you dosed with potassium, which should be safe. 
I'm assuming the potassium was in the form of an aquarium product and you followed the instructions. 
I would suggest some large water changes; they help with most problems (and if the potassium _was _the cause, it will be diluted by the changes).
If you would like to start a thread with the symptoms your Garra is showing, and details of your tank (with photos if possible) some-one can probably offer some advice.
Likewise with your plants not doing well, give us lots of details and we can help.


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## Hanuman (13 Oct 2022)

mibelle85 said:


> Hey there @Hanuman. Michelle here from the states. I came across your post, as my panda garra suddenly seems to be going downhill quick. I was unaware, but I dosed my tank 2 days in a row with potassium. I guess it could be potassium poisoning, but tetra's, and otos seem to be fine. I have had him for roughly a year, happens to be my favorite little guy in the tank (fully planted rainbow tank, with one tetra and a couple otos and the panda) my plants were not growing so great, so my local fish store told me to dose potassium for 2 days. I'm just wondering if you have any idea what happened to yours? Sorry to hear about the loss of your other ones. Never a good feeling. Thanks for any input, Michelle.


I'll be honest but I think potassium has nothing to do with what you are experiencing unless you severely overdosed and by severely I mean you dumped the whole botte and some. Many people and me included dosed EI levels of K. That is 20-30ppm of K.
In my case I was never able to find what the reason was. Only one survived for some reason and he is doing just fine. He never exhibited any of the symptoms other did. All other fish in my tank are doing just fine. Only thing I can think of at this stage was that they died of some disease or genetic disorder or whatnot because I can't find any other explanation.


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## mibelle85 (13 Oct 2022)

@Hanuman thank you very much for your response. No, it definitely wasn't that much. It was just the recommended dose, but 2 days in a row. It's so odd. He's been completely fine for quite some time, then out of no where he's declining. He's swimming erratically and just being weird. We have him contained to one side of the tank by himself. He's eating just fine, and we actually just added some medicated blood worms for internal parasites just to be safe (the tank had some type of internal parasite from the rainbow fish over a year ago from the fish store, which of course we had to medicate all of them.. and none have shown any parasites at all, until today.. when we happened to notice one of the rainbow fish has a white stringy poop.. so I thought maybe it's possible he's had some kind of parasite we weren't aware of) anyway, he's keeping himself upright, but when he goes to swim he is basically spiraling. He'll land back on the ground, and sometimes he'll land on his side or back, but he'll flip himself back over. As long as he doesn't try to swim he seems to be fine. Lastly, he does try to suck onto the glass but it's like he can't. Sorry for being long winded, but kind of at a loss here. Thank you again for your response and help!!


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## Hanuman (13 Oct 2022)

Yes I feel you. Is the fish doing like in the video I posted earlier in the thread? Don't want to discourage you, but in my case, when they started doing that it was a matter of time before they died.


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## mibelle85 (13 Oct 2022)

@sparkyweasel thank you very much! Sorry I am new here and did not see this response. I did do some fairly large water changes just in case it was the potassium. I will do as you suggested as soon as I can.


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## mibelle85 (13 Oct 2022)

Hanuman said:


> Yes I feel you. Is the fish doing like in the video I posted earlier in the thread? Don't want to discourage you, but in my case, when they started doing that it was a matter of time before they died.


I did not even see the video until now. It is kind of similar, but he's more so just kind of chilling. But, that's mostly because he's contained to one side of the tank. I will try to get a video if he starts swimming, he's more so just cruising along the bottom.


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