# Roseline sharks (puntius denisonii



## aznkonner (Oct 18, 2007)

What I say is a vent and may not necessarily be true yet. I am still on the verge of finding out and will be able to confirm in a week maybe 2 with 100% accuracy.

WARNING: long long post just read the lesson part for a quick lesson that i learned and if you wanna answer my question. the rest would be for details about my tank and set up etc.

Ok guys my first post is going to be a venting/warning to everyone. I brought 7 roselines and my friend brought 8 roselines. i lost 1 to jumping and 2 to unknown (which i will explain later) reasons. my friend lost 7 due to unknown reasons.

Ok now for the observations. my friend buys 2 and they die within two days. i buy 2 and one jumps out. he says that someone must've nipped to death two roselines in 2 days. plausible so we buy more roselines. i buy 5 he buys 6. he brings them home at around 2pm and by 7am the next morning 2 dead. i bring one home and it lives. then he loses 2 more the next day. mine still alive. then he decides to put it in a safe tank that's been set up for a long time and the water quality is good. he loses one more plus he loses 4 bushy noses and various other plecos adding up the total lost in the good tank to about 8. another day passes and mine dies. so now i have one and he has one. i still have 4 more left at the store that i havne't pickedup yet.

me and my friend both have planted tanks that are doing fairly well and have co2 both set up (more on this later). his plants grow better then mine are at the moment. water quality for him is top notch mine is not as great but very much livable. no fish without a disease will die in my water. so at this point we assume that it's sickness. that would also explain why the one in my friend's stable set up died and took 8 other fish with him. so i wait a week and then i go back to the store and they've saved 4 for me. so i take them home. i assume they're healthy because it'd be tough for a store who has sick fish to save the exact number i wanted. i put them in at around 2pm and by 10pm that night i knew that one was going to die because it was floating around the top in a sort of daze. by morning it was dead. i fished it out and fed my remaining 4 roselines. of the 4, two of them were eating really well and moving well (one of these was my original that i brought a week before that didn't jump out). 1 was really small and ate fine. and the last one was really small but didn't eat and i started to notice it drifting from side to side as in a daze. this reminded me of the one taht died the day i took it home. that night i noticed that my co2 had stopped producing so i decided to cut the co2 tank for the night(i have a diy co2 thingy that uses a pump). i pull the pump out and just use it as a regular water pump. i heard that roselines like water current so i decided to add in extra water current. that done the next day i was expecting another death. i look inside and they all seem fine (which can be misleading as all the other ones that died looked perfectly healthy until about and hour before time of death). i started to put in food and lo and behold all 4 of them started to eat! the one that was looking all dazed started to eat.

Conclusion:
my friend lost all of his roselines because they're sensitive to co2. my friend's diy co2 thing dissolves alot of the co2 into the plant tank which is why much of his plants are doing better then mine. the other fish in hte tank were not affected by this so did not die. when he moved them into his stable tank he had one fish that was sick and that fish must have killed his other ones too. unlucky on his part. as for me when i first brought my two home one jumped out no biggie there. then i brought one more home and it died after 3 or 4 days. my co2 at that time should not have been very high because i couldn't get it to work correctly. the co2 could not have dissolved at a high rate because it kept on getting released back into the air too quickly. also we should have a fairly high o2 rate because we both have hang on filters that break the surface which should cause good o2 flow. also lots of plants adding more o2 into the water. i did not add anymore roselines into the tank and my co2 thingy was working really well. my first roseline seem to be ok too. he was eating fine and all i can say is that he's probably bigger and isn't as sensitive to the higher lvls of co2. anyways i finally bring home the 4 roselines and i put them in. i notice that there's a small malfunction on my co2 thingy so i take it out and start fixing it. i get it fixed but it's still malfunctioning but i let it slide. that night one of the roselines start to get dazed (i'm assuming there was still lots of co2 dissolved in my water) by morning it was dead. then i noticed another one drifting around and i didn't know what to do and i also noticed that my co2 thingy wasn't producing co2 anymore and i was lazy about it and just left it and took the water pump out and let it just pump water. this would pretty much up the oxygen levels and i would have little to no co2 in my tank because my source of co2 is depleted. the next day all my roselines are healthy and eating and no one drifting.

MAN THAT WAS LONG BUT I HAD TO VENT GOOD JOB IF U READ THE WHOLE THING

LESSON:
If you buy roseline sharks remember to have lots of oxygen inside ur tank. the smaller the roseline the more sensitive they are to low oxygen levels. or it could have been high lvls of co2 that killed them. if that was the case then make sure ur lvls of co2 are low at least until you grow them out a bit because they're sensitive to high lvls of co2. it's one of those two explanations. low o2 lvls or high co2 lvls. one of those killed all those beautiful roselines i'm not sure which but i do not wanna test to find out. if anyone can confirm please do tell so i dont have to make anymore mistakes with this expensive fish


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## gsd78 (Jan 13, 2004)

Post up some tank specs and water parameters for the tanks. That will help people figure out what the problem may have been.

Also, how did you acclimate the fish before putting them in your tank?


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## aznkonner (Oct 18, 2007)

my tank is a 20 gallon plant tank that just got set up a month or two ago. i have a killifish in there along with 2 dwarf puffers. the nitrite and ammonia are at safe levels. the ph is at tap water ph. i don't have anything that would raise or lower my ph. i dont know the parameter of my friend's tank but he hasn't lost a few fish or old fish in any of his tanks for a long time now and i would think he's at safe levels too.

acclimation was i left the bag in the tank for about 2 or 3 hours. then i opened the bag and put about a cup of water into the bag every 5 minutes until the bag was about 50% bag water and 50% tank water then i took out the fish and put them in my tank.

UPDATE:
lost another one today. it was the strongest out of the second batch of roselines i brought home. so now i have 3 left. one from the original batch i brought and 2 small ones from the second batch. my friend lost his last roseline and it took a zebra pleco along with it.

LESSON:
not abundance of co2 or lack of o2 as my tank is filled with o2 right now because i have a water pump and an air pump working on getting the o2 flow in there. back to square one.

RANT:
this is what puzzles/annoys me. the fish don't die at the petshop because he somehow managed to save the exact number i asked him to save for me. that alone should rule out disease right? then the fish don't die exactly when i put them in. that should rule out a shock in water quality or something right? and finally the fish are eating and look perfectly healthy and then die the next day which is hte case with many of my friend's roselines and two of my roselines. the first one that died like this i was feeding them tetra color bits. the second one that died i was feeding it live black worms. which are the same black worms i've kept alive in my bushynose tank for about a week now and which are the same blackworms all my other fish are eating and no fatalities in any other tanks.

QUESTIONS:
are they poisonous? (which would explain why they take others with them when they die in my friend's case) WHAT IS KILLING THEM OFF?

oh yea a cool little observation i found out about the roselines. when they sleep at night the red lines on their body dissapear or fade away


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## captain_bu (Oct 20, 2007)

*roseline sharks*

I was interested in trying these fish too so I did a bunch of research about them recently. What I found out was that they are very fragile fish and are very prone to dying when shipped/moved. That is a lot of the reason they are so expensive, it is not unusual for a store to order these in and have a large percentage of the shipment die en route. They need to be SLOWLY drip acclimated to the water and PH conditions of your tank. Dumping a cup of water in the bag every 5 minutes would not be the ideal way to go about this. You should have tested the PH of the water in both your tank and the bag with the Roselines. Depending on how great the difference is it may take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two of slowly dripping in your tank water before the PH is equalized, you would need to test the bag water frequently during the process until the PH matched your tank. Roselines apparently need to be in a mature tank with extremely clean water, heavily planted, with high oxygen content. You mentioned that your tank has only been running a month or two, that may also be a contributing issue. In the wild they live in fast running water and as such prefer a tank with a strong current. They should be kept in groups of 5 or more and at least one reference I found claimed that they should be kept in a 125 gallon or larger tank. The store probably was able to save you 4 because they had already been in the stores tanks long enough that they had survived shipping and were acclimated to the stores tank. Moving them to your house and tank conditions stresses them again and they need to once again survive a move. If I was going to invest in these fish I would only buy from a reputable LFS that quarantines their fish before they sell them and I would never buy Roseline sharks that hadn't been surviving in the stores tank's for less than a 3 weeks to a month. At the $50 a pop I see nice specimens of this fish selling for I decided that I don't feel comfortable gambling the money on them. Most likely some people have had success with this fish without being particularly careful but my guess is that they are in the minority. They are beautiful fish though so maybe some day.... good luck, and keep us posted if you have success with them. 


SR


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## mnsnowdaboy (Mar 7, 2006)

Wow how much money did you end up losing....ouch. I hope you figure out the situation because it seems kind of strange. You should have just went Co2-less since no Co2 in the water for a week will not kill your plants while it might have been the reason the roseline died. Sorry I didn't actuall read the whole first post if you actually did that :redface: 

Anyways I'm about to get two very soon. I know they should be in a school but I'm getting a crazy discount so I cannot pass this up. I'm running Co2 also so I might turn it off when I put them in the tank to start out with.


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## aznkonner (Oct 18, 2007)

Well another update. i still have 3 alive. one of the original 2 that i brought home and 2 out of the other 5 that i brought home on the second trip.

I would have thought it would've been the acclimation and that they were highly stressed etc. but here's the thing. i was there when the petshop got the order in and i was there when they were released. not one loss in the bag and not one loss in the tank. the store eventually had about 3 losses (out of probably close to 30 fish) and they were all stored in a 20 gallon tank just like mine. I'm not buying them at 50 bucks a pop but rather buying them at 15 bucks each. it's still not a walk in the park but if i had an unknown death at 50 dollars each i woud've stopped buying them. 

I would understand if it was stress due to movement but how would that explain all the deaths that happen days after they were inside my tank and my friend's tank? i don't think that it was stress because both mine and my friend's roselines were all eating strongly and swimming around nicely.

i would also understand the ph thing but like again i don't think it explains the death after 3 or 4 days of healthy eating and no signs of problems right? also my tank has finished it's cycle long ago because i used media from tanks that have been set up for years already so the cycle should be fine. also i have some sensitive fish in there with no problems at all.

currently the 3 remaining that i have are eating very strongly. the big one isn't scared of me anymore and go right to glass to get the food and stay around looking for more. the other two are still scared of me and will go towards the glass get the food and run back. here's hoping no more deaths *crosses fingers*

one more theory i have is that maybe they jumped and hit their head on my glass cover? that would explain why they looked so dazed in the water. so i guess my question is does anyone know how sensitive they are to impacts on the head? also does anyone know if they're poisonous? or if they release some sort of poison when they die?


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## fishscale (May 29, 2007)

I don't think that CO2 alone could be the culprit, especially with DIY, although in a 20 gallon it is entirely possible. 2 things I would like to point out: Roseline barbs get pretty large, and probably should not be kept in a 20 gallon. If you bought 5, this would probably be overstocking the tank. Another thing is the fact that you have 2 dwarf puffers in the tank. Dwarf puffers are notorious for being fearless nippers, attacking fish much larger than themselves. If the puffer won't fit into the fish's mouth, the puffer might try to take a bite out of the fish. Any signs of aggression, torn fins, etc? 

Finally, on pH: When you say tap pH, that is not quite accurate. Water straight from the tap will not be exactly the same as water from the tap left sitting for a day or two. Similarly, water which has been sitting in your tank for an extended period of time with organic substances in it will have different pH then when it started. And, of course, having CO2, even DIY, will affect your pH. So, it is necessary to find out your pH.


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## aznkonner (Oct 18, 2007)

oh yea i didn't mention that. the first second roseline i lost looked like it had some fins nipped. it could quite possibly be the puffers could be blamed for that death. but i've noticed as long as i feed my puffers they don't nip fins. they love the live blackworms so as long as i keep their bellies full they don't nip. they start to nip when they get hungry (which is after about 4 or 5 days of no fresh blackworms).

i'll check out my ph later tonight. i think i lost my kit and my friend i think has one so i gotta wait till tomorrow or so before i get results. i've never had problems with ph before though and i've kept a huge variety of fish ranging from guppies to arowanas and everything in between.


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## aznkonner (Oct 18, 2007)

my ph is at 7.0 which i believe should fall in the ok category for the roseline.

update: looks like i'm experiencing the same thing my friend did. i just lost a bushy nose pleco. by the looks of it he died around a day ago...maybe a little less. eyes are whited out and body is stiff. another bushy nose missing...i don't know where he could've hidden but if i can't find him in such a small tank must mean he's dead somewhere as well.

this death gives rise to one of my other questions. is the roseline shark poisonous? or when it dies does it give off some sort of poision? i don't see why my other fish are dying now of all the times they could die. i'm starting to regret ever buying these fish now...wasted a chunk of cash and now i'm starting to lose my other fish (although this was a bushy nose obtained from one of my breeding pairs). i feel extremely bad for my friend though. he's brought more then me and not only does he have 0 surviving he also lost a bunch of different species of bushynoses as well as a zebra


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## rmc (Dec 6, 2005)

I recently aquired eight 3-inch roselines and put them in a 30 gal tank filled with ro water. The tank is heavily planted and fairly well populated with rummynose tetras and serpae tetras. I'm not running any co2 and I haven't had the filter plugged in for 3 months. All the fish and plants are doing fantastic. 

I doubt if ph shock is the culprit for your fish deaths. I would be more suspect of the co2 and the difference in chemistry between your water and the stores water. If that isn't the problem then the food might be causing problems. Many fish will show negative effects when first fed foods high in animal protein (worms). 

Good Luck!


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## Riley (Jan 24, 2006)

Just like Fishscale said a 20 gallon is too small....way to small. Roselines need room to swim. They are a very active fish and they love to swim. The deaths may be due to stress of a small tank. Where were the fish bought? Pet store? Distributor? Were they put through proper quarentine?


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## tazcrash69 (Sep 27, 2005)

OK, not sure why the deaths happened. but I have one thing to add:
You said your tank was cycled, and you had a killifish, and 2 dwarf puffers. That is not much of a bio-load. the bacteria that support the bio-filter are at a level to support that bio-load. 
Then you added 4 Roseline barbs, and you easily doubled the bio load IMO. The Bio-filter wasn't able to handle it. 

Also, if you try more, try drip acclimating with a piece of airline tubing, and air valve. 

HTH


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## spypet (Sep 15, 2006)

Riley said:


> Just like Fishscale said a 20 gallon is too small....


Ditto. I would love to keep Puntius denisonii,
but would never consider a school of them with
anything less than a 125gal tank. It's a shame
your greedy LPS didn't advise you otherwise. 

if your LPS used the primitive 1" fish per gallon rule,
keeping seven 6"-when-adult fish demands double
the size tank you were housing them in.

As for your conclusions, granted more active
fish need more O2, but you can infuse your
water with more O2 without forsaking CO2
for your plants, as many high tech planted
tank keepers with these fish obviously do.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

I have 9 in a 350 gallon.
No issues.

CO2 is high, but so is the O2, and only when the lights are on, is the CO2 on as well.

What the heck do you breath in and what do you breath out?
Respiration is a two way street and CO2 and O2 act independently here.

Also, the larger the fish, the more suspeptible they are to low O2 and high CO2.
Not the other way around, but this does not sound like a CO2 issue.

Poor acclimation, water changes, space(20 gallon), DIY, etc.

These fish need a minimum of a 125 gallon of 6ft tank, ideally 8 ft tank. I do standard EI dosing, large weekly water changes and they grow a eat like pigs.
Basic stuff, healthy environment, good O2, good CO2, feeding, plenty of room etc.

Regards, 
Tom Barr


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## aznkonner (Oct 18, 2007)

well i do plan to move them soon. i have a 75 gallon right now set up and running being cycled by my more hardy fish (1 adult angel 4 adult rainbows, a bala shark, and a blue crawfish) it's been running for about 3 weeks now and no deaths and eveything seems fine. planning to wait another 3 weeks or so before i remove those fish and put in my roselines. the sponges i used for the 60 gallon tank was from old stable tanks as well so the bacteria should be ok in that tank but i just wanna be safe. i'm only using the 20 gallon right now to grow them out. they're fairly small only about 1.5 inches or less i would say. the big one (the one with no problems) is around 2 inches but the other two are small and so were all the other ones that died.

oh yea and my tank isn't smaller then the petshops tank. i know it might be a space issue but like i said the'yre really small. the petshops are housing the in a 20 gallon tank just like mine and they're doing fine in there. no deaths so moving them from a 20 gallon to another 20 gallon doesn't seem like it would kill them so quickly.

as far as bioload is concerned there wasn't much of a bio load u forgot to add that i had two bushynoses and 2 halfbeaks. the killi, halfbeaks, and puffers should've had a minimal bioload but the bushynoses should have made up for that. the filtration is good with a hang on filter as well as a water pump with a sponge inside that i clean regularly. i talked to a petshop owner and he said it might be ph. someting about the ph could damage the fish over time and mess with the gills. he said my friend's test might not be accurate and that i shoudl bring in the water for some tests...will do that soon hopefully since i have finals coming up. will keep u guys updated.

and as far as food...it could be the problem for me. i was feeding them lots of black worms and that's about it. my friend however fed them strictly color bits and sinking pellets (the green ones from hikari) as well as a little bit of carnivore pellets (hikari as well) so that would explain my deaths but not his.

oh yea no deaths to record this time yay

edit: just checked back a few hours after this post and my killifish is floating and going to die within a few hours by the looks of it. rawr!!!! i'm angry now and gonna save my other fish by moving them out.


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## tpl*co (Nov 4, 2006)

what temp, fert, and water change schedule do you have? What temp is the tank? I have my roselines with my discus and they are huge and happy .

I've found they are sensitive to change and stress though. I had some work done in the house and had to move a huge roseline from one tank to another one in another room, same type of water and same temp. He didn't survive the move and showed the same symptoms you were saying (dazed, then just giving up). He was one of my favorite roselines too .


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## aznkonner (Oct 18, 2007)

ok did the ph at the store and same reading as from my friend.

fertilizer...none. just gravel at the moment. water change once a week about 10% only since the bioload was small. temp is around 80.

updates:
no deaths. everyone happy and eating all looks well now...hopefully *crosses fingers*

i'm planning ot move them into my 60 gallon by saturday. if all these deaths are stress related does anyone have any ideas on reducing the stress? the tank won't have many plants in there but i could add lots of drift wood if it'll help reduce the stress. also i have some big fish in there, 4 rainbows, 1 bala shark, 1 angel, and a blue crayfish. i plant to move the crayfish definitly but i was debating on whether or not i should keep the other fish. 

what do u guys think? should i play it really safe and move all the other fish so it's just those 3 in the tank or would it be a safe risk?


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## perhapseva (Mar 15, 2012)

I am defenietly not the one who can help. By the way just registered and can not do new post - and I also need help with my shark. It's been more than a year I have this 30 gallon tank. Everything went well, with 5 Pinguin tetra, 2 Cory, 3 roseline sharks. Got from store (specialized on freshwater fishes) and bring home 2 red tale sharks. Give one month 1 roseline dead, red tales have white patches - run to store, explain, receive medication go home and do. Conclusion 1 roseline, 2 tetra dead. I separate the red tales (due white patches on them), change the whole water, clean tank...etc. take red tale to store and find out they are just biting each other due small tank for two. I give away one, other guy have been healed and happy camper. In meantime got 4 more roseline. And we lived happily ever after. Month ago 1 roseline floating on the top. Check the water - perfect, enough oxygen, enough plants - ok so maybe small tank again? Then I noticed the rest of the roseline hiding, nerves: my plants grow so high, so I cut them they back right away to normal life. Yesterday morning I walk out ( and this is one of the mistery) 2 roseline committed suicide. I have a lid on the tank, the only two small holes are where the filter and the air tube goes in. Yet they managed. The plants are not high, water quality perfect (according to the tests - I have the API test tubes, co flowing good, filter was changed 2 weeks ago, there is no illness of any kind, temperature is also perfect, everybody alls is happy camper in the tank. But because I have no idea what's going on for just in case, I changed 50% of water, vacuum the gravel, change the filter.The fishes are getting variety of food, dried flakes and fishes, frozen blood worm and frozen variety with vitamins. All the shark are app. 4-5 inches big, the 3 tetra and the 2 corries are app. 3 inches. And right now 1 roseline went crazy, swimm all over then flap the stomach up. And I do not have any idea what's just happened in the last couple day. I love the roselines the tank is set up for optimal for them, the plants are growing like crazy. I think I just simple give up to having them. It's been a while I having them, no problem at all, everything is the same like before and now they are just dying. My hearth goes out but I have no explanation at all. Tank size?


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