Hello,
This really does look like a neat site. I found it after I got my ripsaw catfish, but it's a shame that my first post here has to be about his death.
I have a 55gal tank with two silver dollars, two small freshwater puffers, a spotted raphael and a royal pleco. I do water changes every 1-1.5 weeks and my nitrate count is as close to zero as I can keep it. I have an Eheim wet/dry cannister filter (I forget the model number...it's big).
When I visited my local fish store for food, I saw the ripsaw. My wife and I keep seeing cats that we really like, but are used to hearing the same thing, that the fish we like will eat everything else in our tank. We expected to hear the same thing about the ripsaw, but the owner of the store told us that they were pretty docile, very intelligent fish.
I took him home and was delighted to add him to my tank. In 24 hours, though, he was dead, and very suddenly. The first 12 hours, he mostly sat in a corner and hid. After that he was what I would describe as 'listless.' He would swim for a bit, even near the top, then stop and drift to the bottom, settling on whatever he drifted onto. I checked on him about every 15 minutes after work the next evening. Suddenly he was just dead, stiff as a board.
This is not the first time this has happened. A couple months ago, I bought a king tiger pleco, who lived about a week but died very much in the same way. I didn't see the same listless behavior that I did in the ripsaw, but he was rigid like glass when I removed him from the tank.
Before the 55gal, I had a 28gal bowfront. I tried to keep a striped raphael in the tank twice, but both died much like the ripsaw, within about a week. Despite being nocturnal fish who like to hide all day, they sat on the top of plants and rocks until they died.
As I said, I have two other catfish in the tank, the royal and the spotted raphael, who seem to be fine. I've had both for over a year. They hide all day, but are very healthy.
If anybody has any suggestions, I'd be glad to hear them. My local fish store owner tells me I probably have a buildup of hydrogen sulfide in the tank, so I should remove most of my substrate. Right now it's a couple inches thick, but I stir it up when I siphon every week. I thought that would be enough to keep anaerobic bacteria at bay.
Thanks.
This really does look like a neat site. I found it after I got my ripsaw catfish, but it's a shame that my first post here has to be about his death.
I have a 55gal tank with two silver dollars, two small freshwater puffers, a spotted raphael and a royal pleco. I do water changes every 1-1.5 weeks and my nitrate count is as close to zero as I can keep it. I have an Eheim wet/dry cannister filter (I forget the model number...it's big).
When I visited my local fish store for food, I saw the ripsaw. My wife and I keep seeing cats that we really like, but are used to hearing the same thing, that the fish we like will eat everything else in our tank. We expected to hear the same thing about the ripsaw, but the owner of the store told us that they were pretty docile, very intelligent fish.
I took him home and was delighted to add him to my tank. In 24 hours, though, he was dead, and very suddenly. The first 12 hours, he mostly sat in a corner and hid. After that he was what I would describe as 'listless.' He would swim for a bit, even near the top, then stop and drift to the bottom, settling on whatever he drifted onto. I checked on him about every 15 minutes after work the next evening. Suddenly he was just dead, stiff as a board.
This is not the first time this has happened. A couple months ago, I bought a king tiger pleco, who lived about a week but died very much in the same way. I didn't see the same listless behavior that I did in the ripsaw, but he was rigid like glass when I removed him from the tank.
Before the 55gal, I had a 28gal bowfront. I tried to keep a striped raphael in the tank twice, but both died much like the ripsaw, within about a week. Despite being nocturnal fish who like to hide all day, they sat on the top of plants and rocks until they died.
As I said, I have two other catfish in the tank, the royal and the spotted raphael, who seem to be fine. I've had both for over a year. They hide all day, but are very healthy.
If anybody has any suggestions, I'd be glad to hear them. My local fish store owner tells me I probably have a buildup of hydrogen sulfide in the tank, so I should remove most of my substrate. Right now it's a couple inches thick, but I stir it up when I siphon every week. I thought that would be enough to keep anaerobic bacteria at bay.
Thanks.
