Gill curl

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fugidabowtit

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
May 6, 2005
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I have an RTC in a 180g tank and he seems to be getting gill curl on his right gill. i have seen this before and thought it was due to bad housing(small tank bad water poor diet etc).
he is only 6" and the water is fine what could be causing this and can it be healed before it is too late.
 
Can you post a pic ??? I and a few friends who keep rtc's have narrowed it down to what we think is a PH issue. This is certainly not conrete evidence but I have curled a few gills myself and every time my PH was very low. A friend was growing some out in his Discus tanks.........again.. low PH all curled gills :confused: It seems to happen when they are between 4-8". Some think its a birth defect, some hereditary, but I'm sticking with my low PH exposer theory. I havent curled a gill myself in years after this discovery. I also have never seen it "cured". I rescued a little guy a few years ago and one side was so bad you could see right in, the other side perfect. It hasnt got any better or worse.


JMO of course and good luck.




bob
 
Bgonz;1280451; said:
Can you post a pic ??? I and a few friends who keep rtc's have narrowed it down to what we think is a PH issue. This is certainly not conrete evidence but I have curled a few gills myself and every time my PH was very low. A friend was growing some out in his Discus tanks.........again.. low PH all curled gills :confused: It seems to happen when they are between 4-8". Some think its a birth defect, some hereditary, but I'm sticking with my low PH exposer theory. I havent curled a gill myself in years after this discovery. I also have never seen it "cured". I rescued a little guy a few years ago and one side was so bad you could see right in, the other side perfect. It hasnt got any better or worse.


JMO of course and good luck.




bob
Click to expand...


I agree that this could possibly be a PH issue, but in any case check out all your params. My baby RTC had it when he was just 1.5" long. I changed water daily at 25%, and after a month he was much larger and the gill curl was much less noticible. Now he's 16" and you can barely see it. It will definitely be there for life, but if you correct it early enough seems not to get any worse. It's only one side also. None of the other RTC I have raised or hybrids ever had it. I'd say PH might be spot on as it's really low here in montana. My others were in North Carolina.
 
What range ph do you keep your red tails in?????
 
ph is 7
i have had redtails and hybrids in the past with no issues.
water param are fine nitrates are about 10ppm amonia and nitrite 0.
the tank is quite heavily stocked and i do 30% water changes twice a week.
 
im not sure how to upload a photo to the thread but they are in my gallery as "baby rtc".
as you can see from the photo (sorry not great pics) it is not too bad at the moment but i want to stop it before it gets bad.
 
My big cats are kept at a stable PH of 7.6. The TSN we picked up had a bit of curl on his right side but it seems to be improving a great deal...although as you've already heard it's still there and I imagine it always will be.

I don't have any real evedance one way or the other but from personal expierance I'll back up the PH theory.
 
Looks like inflammation of the gills to me. I have received fish like this before. I think it is from poor water, overfeeding, and excessive exposure to particulate matter. Keep his water clean, and don't overfeed him. I would add some salt (I am not sure if rtc's are sensitive to salt baths for the record) and add a power-head. If it is gill-curl it looks to be limited to the tissue and the method I described will cure curl of the inner soft tissue of the gill....(The outer gill cover is a bit more difficult to treat and not highly recommended from me at least...)
 
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