Catfish Injury

wynnyelle

Exodon
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Apr 23, 2017
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My catfish is hurt. She was being moved from my old pond to a holding tank and struggled bad in the net and the rocks and stuff and got hurt. She got this a few weeks ago and it hasn't healed. Due to me having to destroy my pond (its in my parents back garden and they are trying to sell the house now so it had to go) my poor fish all had to be taken out. I am moving to a new place soon that has a very large pond for them all but that is 2 weeks away or so. I just don't want her to die of infection...She seems to be eating normally, or at least her belly looks round and she is swimming around normally.

Attaching pictures...as you can see the poor girl is really roughed up. I don't know if I should do antibiotics (last time i tried that in a tank I had a fish die off and the time before that I had a major plant die off. ) or just keep the water changed up till the move and see how things go...my worry is that it doesn't seem to be getting better.

Edit: The pictures don't attach, it says they are too large...sorry
 
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kno4te

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Would keep water clean. Can always dab the areas with some methylene blue. Add salt at 1 tsp per g (one time). Post pics when able.
 
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wynnyelle

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Apr 23, 2017
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Well she seemed to have healed up and was swimming around normally, until now, when she started having strange spells where she would fall to the bottom, lie there, sometimes gasping sometimes not, then suddenly go into this thing where she would thrash and swim around completely nonsense way. Then go back to laying on the bottom. over and over and over, till she died. i had this happen with another of my catfish recently, they had to get moved out of my pond since my parents forced me to shut it down. I moved to my own house where i have a new pond now, but too late for them. I'm not asking how to save them now obviously, but I am asking if anyone knows what it was that killed them. They had clean water, and no obvious signs of illness. It seemed to come on suddenly.

edit: It happened to my pleco too recently. So that's 3 it happened to. Tonight I thought it might be the temperature drop (they were all beign kept outside) but the first one died weeks ago back when it was still warm. He died VERY suddenly and in the same way. I'm getting scared to keep any fish outdoors anymore or even at all, what's the point if they all just up and die without explanation.
 

tlindsey

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Well she seemed to have healed up and was swimming around normally, until now, when she started having strange spells where she would fall to the bottom, lie there, sometimes gasping sometimes not, then suddenly go into this thing where she would thrash and swim around completely nonsense way. Then go back to laying on the bottom. over and over and over, till she died. i had this happen with another of my catfish recently, they had to get moved out of my pond since my parents forced me to shut it down. I moved to my own house where i have a new pond now, but too late for them. I'm not asking how to save them now obviously, but I am asking if anyone knows what it was that killed them. They had clean water, and no obvious signs of illness. It seemed to come on suddenly.

edit: It happened to my pleco too recently. So that's 3 it happened to. Tonight I thought it might be the temperature drop (they were all beign kept outside) but the first one died weeks ago back when it was still warm. He died VERY suddenly and in the same way. I'm getting scared to keep any fish outdoors anymore or even at all, what's the point if they all just up and die without explanation.
Sorry for your loss.
 

wynnyelle

Exodon
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Apr 23, 2017
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Thank you.

I'll be looking for replacements for her and Wheatus, but until I find them, I'm getting out of the hobby. I'll probably keep my planted shrimp and guppy tank for now (it needs so little maintenance it's funny), put my koi all out in my new huge pond (which will take better care of them than I ever could before) rehome all my other fish and put my equipment in storage for if I can ever get my hands on new Wels. Unlikely now that that ban in importations is in effect, but I guess you never know.

This is one slight I'm not getting past in terms of my parents. If they had just let me keep that pond up another month or so I wouldn't be writing this. Those catfish were my babies, they were my real wet pets.

I buried them in the backyard
 

wynnyelle

Exodon
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Apr 23, 2017
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I don't usually double post but this needed another chapter. I didn't get the heart up to go bury Cosette until around 1 pm today. She was going to get a place of honour in the family pet cemetery in the yard, with the dogs and cats. I got the yardstick to do a post mortem measurement and went out there to bury her. She's alive in there, seemingly in recovery! SHE WAS ONLY MOSTLY DEAD. She had been just about dead last night and I was thinking there'd be no saving her (hence why I put that I buried her, because I was about to and I wasn't likely to come back to this thread but wanted everyone following it to know how it ended.) It has not ended! She had a halloween miracle. She's still not out of the woods yet but I'm doing a slow water change for her and also hooked up the heater and thermostat since maybe she was almost dead because it got too cold (dropped down to about 40 degrees in there). Now it will get to and remain around 60 in there, at least for now. She's still in a bad way but so far so good, I am checking on her on the hour. She's still pretty weak and ragged looking and obviously hasn't had a recent meal but that was not surprising because of how cold it was.
 
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wynnyelle

Exodon
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Apr 23, 2017
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Further update: She's now swimming around much more actively as I have heated the water gradually up to the upper 60s, but seems a bit wobbly and disoriented and is spending a lot more time than usual at or near the surface. Doesn't seem as alert as she should be. I added an airstone, will check her again soon.

Edit: no change, airstone is attached to a pump good enough for the whole tub. She's swimming all over the place but is just acting a little drunk.
 
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wynnyelle

Exodon
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Apr 23, 2017
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Another update: she is starting to have random thrashing around again. I turnt off the heater since it's not really cold out there anyway. She seemed more or less okay during the day now suddenly it's getting bad again.
 

wynnyelle

Exodon
MFK Member
Apr 23, 2017
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Further update: She is almost completely disoriented and mostly keeps her nose near the surface, but seems unable to regulate which way she is pointing. What is this???
 
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