African lungfish emergency!!!

[JakeLindsay]

Hello all,

My African lungfish seems to have some sort of red film over his gills. I’ve added a picture. I know they filter food through the gills and I feed massivore pellets which have the red color, but this looks different almost like a fungus. His behavior seems to be normal. Has anyone seen this before? And what do I do?

 

[deeda]

Maybe thebiggerthebetter can offer some advice for you.

 

[TwoHedWlf]

Isn't that normal? Thought that was their gills, so they're full of blood. The pics I've seen look like that.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Hi Jake, I'd say this is normal. Our West African lungfish also developed such structures at some times. It looks healthy and normal. I am not sure why they have these sometimes more prominent than in other times but this has to do with their primitive breathing apparatuses and perhaps the varying need for oxygen in different seasons - when the need increases, they grow (more? longer?) of these reddish filaments / brush on their external gills.

 

[JakeLindsay]

Awesome thanks for the response. I’ll keep an eye on him and when I have time I’ll do more research on the species to try and get a concrete answer. I forgot to mention in the first post that he had, unfortunately, ran into the Asian red tail and devoured him so k wonder if it is a response to eating a larger meal.

 

[Cowturtle]

Yep looks normal to me too. Often times their external gills will get chewed off when they're kept with other fish then they grow back. Yours looks like healthy gills to me. It will eventually lose them permanently when it's much larger.