Electric catfish--How fat is too fat?
- Thread starter Mount_Prion
- Start date
Also, I'm convinced there's something wrong with him now. He's got some gray slime you can sort of see going on that is not normal and didn't eat the wafer I just gave him. Plus he's been hanging out at the top of the tank, which is not normal.
Any advice on how to treat him?
Any advice on how to treat him?
yea that looks like too fat. You should feed less, and make sure he only eats high-protein food imo.
What are the water parameters? pH? Nitrites? Temp?
If you're trying to convert him off algae wafers (which is odd that it eats those in the first place) try the starvation method for a couple days then try frozen blood worms/live night crawlers and I'm sure it will readily take them. Afterwards you can supplement with market shrimp/hikari sinking pellets.
Oh yeah and post moar pics!
Thanks for getting back to me on this, everybody. I've actually gotten him in isolation now, but the tank he was in had pretty perfect water parameters. I was running it a little hot (80-82) but the PH stays in the 6.9-7 range, low to no nitrites, no ammonia, and no nitrates due to heavy planting. I'm treating him with some metronidazole in his quarantine, but am considering treating my whole larger tank with it as I don't really know the source of the illness.
I created a thread in the planted section asking about how plant-safe that stuff is, people seem to think it's OK if I don't treat it for too long.
And as an aside, I think he got used to eating the algae wafers in the LFS. He was there for maybe 4 months before I decided he was cute rather than ugly, and pretty much just hid under a log with more aggressive eaters above him. So my guess is that from the time he was a baby, those were the only things he could eat in a major way. I wouldn't be surprised if he was responsible for the starvation of a pleco or two.
In my main tank he would have no problem getting his whiskers on some silverside or bloodworms or shrimp, but they just never interested him. I will feed him less--I think this particular fatness came from one day where I tried to feed a pleco and as a result he ended up stealing 3 wafers. That obviously won't happen again.
I'll take his isolation as an easy chance to get him eating better stuff, assuming he recovers, before putting him back in the big tank.
I created a thread in the planted section asking about how plant-safe that stuff is, people seem to think it's OK if I don't treat it for too long.
And as an aside, I think he got used to eating the algae wafers in the LFS. He was there for maybe 4 months before I decided he was cute rather than ugly, and pretty much just hid under a log with more aggressive eaters above him. So my guess is that from the time he was a baby, those were the only things he could eat in a major way. I wouldn't be surprised if he was responsible for the starvation of a pleco or two.
In my main tank he would have no problem getting his whiskers on some silverside or bloodworms or shrimp, but they just never interested him. I will feed him less--I think this particular fatness came from one day where I tried to feed a pleco and as a result he ended up stealing 3 wafers. That obviously won't happen again.
I'll take his isolation as an easy chance to get him eating better stuff, assuming he recovers, before putting him back in the big tank.
What are the water parameters? pH? Nitrites? Temp?
If you're trying to convert him off algae wafers (which is odd that it eats those in the first place) try the starvation method for a couple days then try frozen blood worms/live night crawlers and I'm sure it will readily take them. Afterwards you can supplement with market shrimp/hikari sinking pellets.
Oh yeah and post moar pics!
While constant pH is better than accurate pH, the ideal range for this species would be closer to 7.6-7.8 pH. I kept one of these guys for a little over a year with two different species of synodontis (multipunctatus and flavitaeniatus) and it was easily my favorite catfish species. Lots of character even though it does look like a sausage with fins. Hope it recovers quickly!
