Venezuela Pike with red stress marks

[scottts210]

I recently rescaped my 210 gallon new world Cichlid tank, replacing the rough jagged rock I had in the tank with smooth fake rocks from Aquadecor, so that my large Oscar would stop getting scraped up. In the process, my Pike's covered cave got removed. He has places to hide with the new rocks but not the completely covered cave he used to have. Some water volume has also been lost as the new rocks are bigger than the old rocks.

As I was making the changes, Mike (the Pike) developed the red-ish rusty looking splotches you see in the photo. The speed of this was amazing so I have to assume its stress induced. Its been about a week and he is still mostly hiding and not eating. None of the other fish in the tank have had a significant reaction to the change. While the change has benefited the Oscar, I'm worried about Mike.

I have been monitoring ammonia, nitrite, ph, etc twice a day since the changes and there has been no spikes or rapid changes.

Any of you Pike experts ever seen this reaction? Do I give it more time for adaptation or am I going to have to reestablish a cave for him?

Thanks.

 

[haynchinook334]

Looks like a color morph to me. Give it time and keep us updated on this one. I've owned many Vens, but never seen that.

 

[Fishyboy🐟🐟🐟]

I recently rescaped my 210 gallon new world Cichlid tank, replacing the rough jagged rock I had in the tank with smooth fake rocks from Aquadecor, so that my large Oscar would stop getting scraped up. In the process, my Pike's covered cave got removed. He has places to hide with the new rocks but not the completely covered cave he used to have. Some water volume has also been lost as the new rocks are bigger than the old rocks.

As I was making the changes, Mike (the Pike) developed the red-ish rusty looking splotches you see in the photo. The speed of this was amazing so I have to assume its stress induced. Its been about a week and he is still mostly hiding and not eating. None of the other fish in the tank have had a significant reaction to the change. While the change has benefited the Oscar, I'm worried about Mike.

I have been monitoring ammonia, nitrite, ph, etc twice a day since the changes and there has been no spikes or rapid changes.

Any of you Pike experts ever seen this reaction? Do I give it more time for adaptation or am I going to have to reestablish a cave for him?

Thanks.


View attachment 1520124

I may be over reacting but red ish bloches can be bacterial infections; maybe due to stress?
It might be a color morph or more likely stress colors

 

[scottts210]

Thanks for asking. Shortly after I posted this my big red Oscar got a raging case of HITH, worst I've ever seen in term of area affected. The whole tank was treated with metronidazole, praziquantel, and even esha hexamita, sequentially, after removing the previous med, trying to "cure" the HITH as the Oscar would not eat.

After all the treatments the last thing I did was treat with kanamycin for secondary bacterial infections. During this treatment the red on the pike disappeared. Here he is now. I guess he had something like hemorrhagic septicemia? Either that or he just adapted to the tank changes.

Mike the Pike is doing fine.

 

[Americancichlidsaredabest]

Mike the Pike

That’s what my pike cichlids name was to. Beautiful fish.

 

[Fishyboy🐟🐟🐟]

Thanks for asking. Shortly after I posted this my big red Oscar got a raging case of HITH, worst I've ever seen in term of area affected. The whole tank was treated with metronidazole, praziquantel, and even esha hexamita, sequentially, after removing the previous med, trying to "cure" the HITH as the Oscar would not eat.

After all the treatments the last thing I did was treat with kanamycin for secondary bacterial infections. During this treatment the red on the pike disappeared. Here he is now. I guess he had something like hemorrhagic septicemia? Either that or he just adapted to the tank changes.

Mike the Pike is doing fine.

View attachment 1525703

Is the Oscar ok? The bloches may have been bacterial infection

 

[scottts210]

That’s what my pike cichlids name was to. Beautiful fish.

Thanks. My granddaughter named him!

 

[scottts210]

Is the Oscar ok? The bloches may have been bacterial infection

It was definitely HITH from everything I can tell from pictures. He's healing the sores slowly, but he hasn't been eating regularly for over two months. He used to be the dominant fish in the tank, but he seems unwilling to duke it out in the chaos at feeding time to eat. The smaller albino tiger Oscar in the tank has started become more dominant. I fear he's beginning to weaken and I'm afraid he may not make it long term. I just can't get him to eat anything significant.

I did read the entire thread on epsom salt solution soaked food and I've tried to get him to eat that but can't. I don't know if I can use the force feeding technique. He's very hard to catch.

The tank has Rufus, the sick red Oscar, Tina, the albino tiger, Mike the pike, Johnny an EBJD, 5 red hook silver dollars, a red tailed shark, and a BN Pleco. Everyone is healthy except for Rufus.

 

[scottts210]

It was definitely HITH from everything I can tell from pictures. He's healing the sores slowly, but he hasn't been eating regularly for over two months. He used to be the dominant fish in the tank, but he seems unwilling to duke it out in the chaos at feeding time to eat. The smaller albino tiger Oscar in the tank has started become more dominant. I fear he's beginning to weaken and I'm afraid he may not make it long term. I just can't get him to eat anything significant.

I did read the entire thread on epsom salt solution soaked food and I've tried to get him to eat that but can't. I don't know if I can use the force feeding technique. He's very hard to catch.

The tank has Rufus, the sick red Oscar, Tina, the albino tiger, Mike the pike, Johnny an EBJD, 5 red hook silver dollars, a red tailed shark, and a BN Pleco. Everyone is healthy except for Rufus.

Just an update on Rufus. We have moved him to a 75 gallon tank by himself so he can recover and eat without stress or competition. His last HITH sores are healing and last night he started to eat again. He seems to have suffered some sort of damage to his eyesight and/or other senses. He takes a long time to zero in on food and often misses sucking it in the first couple of attempts. He sometimes seems to swim into the side of the tank like he can't tell its there. Hopefully he will recover his previous vitality, but If needs be he can live the rest of his life peacefully in this new tank .

Mike and the other fish are doing super in the the 210.

 

[scottts210]

Sorry to bump this older thread, but one final update on Rufus. Unfortunately, while his HITH never came back, something inside him was too damaged from either the disease or the meds, and he developed buoyancy and constipation issues. We did everything we knew to do, epsom salt baths, fasting, vitamins, levamisole to raise immunity, tons of water changes, and he did rally from time to time, but ultimately he could no longer eat or poop and was just laying flat on the bottom of the tank.

We euthanized him last night. He went peacefully. We only had him for 2-1/2 years but we loved him.