Help! Channel cat sick!

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
U

USFallingFire

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Aug 29, 2009
34
0
0
Illinois
Hey, I just got back home a couple days ago after being away for New Years, and my peacock bass had a pretty bad case of ich. I moved him to a hospital tank, but for the past 2 days my catfish hasn't been eating or moving around normally, and is just laying on the bottom, breathing very heavily. He is in the tank with a florida gar, who is acting normally, and neither one has any visible signs of ich. The tank is a 120 with an FX5, the temp is 64 (i like to somewhat emulate the seasons for them), ph7, ammonia0, nitrite and nitrate <0.3 (the lowest my lab reads). However when I came back from my trip my tank was in dire need of a water change (didn't bother checking levels) as my father who stopped by to feed the fish likes to horribly overfeed. So basically I have two thoughts and would like input. 1. ich has infested the cats gills but not his skin, or 2. in the week I was gone he aquired brown blood disease from the dirty water.

Sorry for the long winded story, but please give me your input on what to treat for, and how to treat. Thank you!
 
I forgot to mention I've already added salt at a ratio of 1tsp per gallon to treat for possible brown blood. This limits the choice of medications available to this already sensitive species even further, so please take this into account for any suggestions.
 
You are correct in your assumption that the catfish has ich. It does not have to show itself outside the body of your fish. Ich also attacks the gill tissues. That explains perfectly why your catfish is breathing heavily. Make sure your water is very high in oxygen level. Try the Rid Ich as your second option if the salt treatment does not work well after 10 days. Increase to another teaspoon per gallon of salt in the next 12 hours.
 
yep yep what he said. i usually bump up the water temp as well. good luck. hope ur cat fish and ur pbass make it, ick can be a pain
 
Yeah, I figured that too. I thought the lowered immune response would be a non-issue until I came home and there were 40 goldfish in my tank, lol. I'll proly keep it around 70 or so after they've recovered.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom