Firewood catfish doing barrel rolls

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Not well. I thought he was dead this morning when I checked on him. I found him on his side, closer to upside down than upright and couldn't tell for sure if his gills were moving. I reached in and rotated him upright and held him off the bottom for about a minute before I saw any movement. He gave a little kick and started breathing heavy. He was breathing heavy all day yesterday. His small wounds from bumping into the sides are looking pretty irritated and I think one of the other cats has been bullying him a bit. One whisker and his tail both look like they got bitten.

I stopped adding salt and have bumped up the WCs even more. I think my nitrate test is getting inaccurate as it's near the end of the bottles and I'm seeing no change after WCs. Showing about 15ppm 100% of the time now. Still Zero ammonia and nitrites. I would think the combination of the purigen, my heavy feeding plants-pothos, dwarf banana, alocasia all getting lots of natural light and growing well- large daily WCs, and virtually no feedings I should still be making downward progress with the nitrates.

All three other cats in the tank have been very active looking for food, even the o. niger is swimming to me whenever I walk in the garage and normally he hides as soon as he sees lights or movement outside the tank.
 
sorry for your planiceps dont give up hope yet it is really hard to find one more as there not common
 
Poor guy didn't make it through the day. I got up to get ready for work and found him upside down, no gill movement, and unresponsive. Not surprising considering how bad he looked when I went to bed, I'd have guessed ammonia burns from the look of his whiskers, fins, and skin but I tested ammonia and nitrites three times, once immediately post bio-filtration, once immediately before bio from a skimming drain, and once from deep in the tank, and found zero in all three locations. Again all the other cats in the tank are acting fine and showing no signs of illness or injury.
 
sorry for your loss he was a nice catfish indeed. how much did he cost there pretty hard to find hope you go for another one
 
sorry for your loss he was a nice catfish indeed. how much did he cost there pretty hard to find hope you go for another one

Wasn't horribly expensive but far more than my other cats and I loved watching him swim, almost shark-like because they're so long and lean. I may try to get another someday but probably not any time soon. My fish keeping budget for the next few months is going to be dedicated to repairing my 120 and getting my big tank ready for winter.

Sent from my Huawei-U8665 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App
 
Sorry he didn't make it.
 
MonsterFishKeepers.com