I have 2 gulper catfish with little wart like bumps on there bellies, sides, and backs. Getting into detail I have them in a 55 gallon aquarium, decorations are mopani wood, petrified wood, slate, and your typical mineral based fine gravel. Plants are java moss and micro sword. Filtration is an emporer 400 , emperor 280 and also an aquaclear 50 powerhead. The tank has been up and running for 4 months with 3 spotted rapheals and 1 clown pleco. My gulpers arrived to me 2 weeks ago after spending 3 days in a box, thanx usps, guranteed overnight I thought, I'll never use them again, but anyways the gulpers made it alive but definatly not happy, ammo levels were sky high and the ph bottomed out to where my kit couldn't read it . I spent the next 3 hours acclimating the gulpers to my water which is neutral and and all other paramaters where good, the gulpers were fine for a few days and then became lethargic during the days after a week, they ate feeders from my hand but wouldn't eat the free swimming feeders they would try to eat the raphaels but definatly didn't like there texture so they spit them out. Then comes yesterday, bi weekly cleaning time, I'm checking my gulpers out and notice they have little wart like bumps on them and some have white spots on them and noticed a white spot on some of the fins, so I checked my water and ammonia was high and nitrates were high, I vacuumed and did a 50 percent water change and put the clown pleco and spotted rapheals in another tank, those are some nasty little fish, anyways my water parameters were back to normal and I treated the tank with a half dose api ick cure, a small amount of aquarium salt and raised temp from 81 to 84 shut the lights out and let the fish enjoy there night. I woke up this morning and noticed the fish were more active and swiiming in the powerhead current they look cured in the sunlight shining into the tank and when I turned the light on they they looked good, then hafter 10 minutes of lighting a few of the bumps seemed to show up ....
gulper catfish bumps
- Thread starter braaandooon
- Start date
... and some of the would turn white at the head, also noticed that while they are swimming in the curent little buubles seem to stick to them, not sure what that is, for now I'm treating for ick, but was wondering if the problems I am having good be fungal or possibly parasites any advice and recommendations would be greatly appreciated , thanx.
....couple other things I've notice that I failed to mention, they fart out little air buubles I just noticed and have seen them rub against the gravel twice over the last day which I take as a sign of ick. I've seen ick before on fish but never seen fish with these little bumps.
Yeah I would like to know what this is too. 1 of mine is changing colors too and I'm getting kinda worried. My water parameter are good no ammonia and no nitrates
well turns out my gulpers have comunaris, I'm thanking usps and there wounderful overnight delivery, anyways overnight turned into three days in the postal system and my fish where very unhappy, ph bottomed out and ammonia galore, but never having any expierience with this species I decided to keep a close eye on these guys, first signs showed up as soon as I opened the box, cloudy eyes, white greyish film on back and head, and heavy breathing, they accepted food at this state and there health seemed to slowly decline over the next few days, after a week in this state a white spot appeared on anal fin and I knew somthing was definatly wrong, I came to this board for help and wasn't able to get any, so I went ahead and treated for ick, I knew columnaris was an option but went ahead and took a shot at ich. Very bad decision I dosed with half recommended dose of salt, catfish don't like salt, but these guys seemed not to mind it so much, and turned up the temp from 82 to 86, I woke up the next morning to a horror movie, both fish were covered in yellow ulcers and white blisters everywhere, at this point they were breathing really hard and at the top of the tank, they were in bad shape, I knew now I'd really messed up, columnaris it was. At this time I started out by lowering the temp to 74, I did this over an 8 hour span and they seemed to take it in stride I also upped the dose of salt to recommended dosage at time, and added more oxygen to my tank by adding air to my powerheadhead, columnaris hates oxygen, salt, and temps under 76, in those conditions the bacteria won't spread, but it still remains, then I started my gulpers on meds, as of now I'm using maracyn and maracyn 2, and its actually quite effective, it hasn't ruined the balance of my tank suprisingly, all paramaters are good, I'm also giving them baths in methylene blue at double dosage, twice a day, for 30 minutes a bath, not sure if this is counter effective though, they seem to breath better after these baths but the gulpers have lost the tips of.....
there appendages, not sure if this is the columnaris because there have been no other signs of fin or tail rot, and also not sure of the affects of methylene blue on catfish as this is my first time using this application on catfish, but hey what ever helps them breath better will help them live longer, those appendages will grow back , and columnaris will get bad enough to deteriate gills if left untreated eventually leading to a cause of death and less any other of the symptoms kills it first, anyways I'm at the end of the first week of treatment with maracyn and maracyn 2 and my fish are on the road to recovery, 75% of ulcers and blisters have dissapered, eye cloudiness has reduced 50 % , respiration has improved and things are looking up, only downside has been the lack of appetite and that hasn't improved yet but that probaly won't happen until these fish are fully recovered, luckily they had a big meal before they got sick and can go quite a while without eating, tommarow is a new day for them now, 75 percent water change is instore along with the 10 percent I've been doing daily since they got sick, and I will be starting treatment with kanaplex which I wouldve perfered from the start, but due to unavailibility I had to go with the best commonly availble med in tetracycline (maracyn 2) also availible from other manurfactures in different forms, but if you can get a hold of seachems kanaplex or anything in the form of kanamycin, go with that its easier to administer . easier on the bio aspect of your aquarium, and a lot more effective on columnaris all together I know from a prior columnaris infection in an alligator gar I adopted awhile back it was near death and made a full recovery within a 7 day span, so hopefully tommarow things will start to clear up for good, if this is a problem you may be dealing with just keep your tank clean and keep up with meds, these gulpers are hardy fish and to my short expierience dealing with them they seem to be able to handle a lot, and when your infection disappears...
keep treating for atleast a week, preferably longer, things may look good but that stuff can show back up, to my knowledge the life cycle of columnaris can last up to 32 days, but I'm no expert on this , as I've only dealt with this one time before, anybody on this board feel free to correct me as I would like to learn more myself on columnaris, but you can find lots of information on columnaris all over the web, there's a good sticky about it at the top of this forum, and a lot of your best information is going to be from people with first hand experience, a few of those articles can easily be googled, as far as I know I can't find any firsthand info on gulpers and columnaris as this experience with this bacteria has completely different symptoms than my expierience with my first columnaris bout. To finish this I would appreciate any input from anyone with gulper catfish experience especially info about peoples experiences with gulpers being infected by this bacteria, I will follow up with updates on my progress with this infection in hopes to help anyone else out that might be having these same problems or that might eventually run into this problem with this unique personable catfish
Here are my gulpers during their treatment in a 10 gallon. I don't see any signs of the disease but they still aren't eating
I'm lucky I haven't had this problem however I think some gulpers get color changes as they mature my one has almost a golden coloration running along it's back and it's white belly is almost half way up it's sides. At first I was worried but her fins are fine she eats and farts like a slob and is very active at night. I always keep a close eye on them because I have heard of everyones problems and thats what I try to avoid. Thanks for the info it's very helpful.