injured gar help

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cjacob316

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
May 31, 2011
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lafayette, la
my catfish got to my gar a couple of times, I don't think its back is broken, but it is a little torn up, here is a link to a video to take a look at it. will it be able to recover from this? I know most of the time fins will grow back. but sometimes the damage is past where it will regrow so I am hoping it's not too bad.

http://youtu.be/61nmVZ065f4
 
cjacob316 said:
so it is recoverable?
Click to expand...

Yes, it is.

Please do as barracuda123 suggested and separate and treat with salt and raised temperature.

Gar are extremely sensitive to medication and given the outrageous severity of the damage, you have little to NO chance of that gar recovering from a massive Melafix treatment that severity damage requires.

I don't mean to offend you, (I have easily done many times worse!) but I do not believe that this kind of damage was possible to a Gar from a catfish short of a toothy catfish like a goonch in a relatively short period of time. Sorry I believe that you either "dropped the ball" allowing this damage to occur over a longer period of time by not paying attention to the "tank" environment, or did notice the damage being done and decided for any number of reasons to not take action until now, with the extreme severity of damage to the Gar making treatment much more difficult.
 
barracuda123 said:
Put in seperate tank, add salt, increase temp and do water changes every 3 days
Click to expand...

As said above.. It will grow back fine... BTW Melafix generally KILLS gars.. so no on that.... Usually even this type of extensive damage will heal fine with the above treatment as long as a fungal situation does not set in. If a fungal situation sets in then other measures need to be taken but right now do none. This fish though should not in any way be put back into that tank.
 
Pejelajarto said:
As said above.. It will grow back fine... BTW Melafix generally KILLS gars.. so no on that.... Usually even this type of extensive damage will heal fine with the above treatment as long as a fungal situation does not set in. If a fungal situation sets in then other measures need to be taken but right now do none. This fish though should not in any way be put back into that tank.
Click to expand...

100% agree. This guy has forgotten more about Gars than most of us will ever know. Again, please do not take this as an insult, but can you please let us know the species of Catfish you had as a tank mate for the gar?

I stress that I have done FAR worse than you. There are a decent number of us "newbie" gar keepers on this forum to "learn" from some of the true experts that frequent the forum. I am surprised that I beat the X-man to the punch, but there is a wealth of information in the stickies that can be very beneficial to new "gar" keepers.

I would particularly suggest reviewing the stickie on gar tank mate experiences. It is important to note that in the "compatibility" area you always find someone who has made the "undoable" combination work out "OK" for them. The stickie in general has the larger catfish species and gar as incompatible.

Pay close attention in these threads to the experts (Pejelajarto & E-Americanus) where posters have included personal experience success stories of gar tank mates that are generally an "exception to the rule". You would have found precious little encouragement to try the catfish/ gar combination.

You have an excellent source of information at your fingertips. Learn to use it, and ask questions first before "experimenting".

It would also help immensely if you DON'T do what a good number of us "newbies" did at first, and ask a question, get excellent advice and that just F'ing do the "WRONG" thing anyway.

I knew alot more than these Gar experts who had the unmitigated gull to inform me that several 14+" Oscar would not be a great environment for a juvenile longnose gar. I don't foresee retrying the Gar/ cichlid combo. anytime soon.
 
Here's what I've done in the past for injured/sick ancient fishes (gars, lungfishes, etc.) as per Solomon's (E_americanus) instructions:

  1. Bump the water temperature up to 82°F.
  2. Add one tablespoon of salt per ten gallons of water.
  3. Do a 50% water change every other day.
  4. If the wound gets infected, gob Neosporin on just the infected area; a large amount will be needed to ensure that some of it sticks to the affected area.
This treatment has worked great for me every time that I've used it and recovery times for the fishes were minimal, so it should work just fine for you, too.
 
I did not say it was a one time thing

the first time was obvious, after that, it was hard to tell if the catfish was still getting at him. i have been out of town for the last two weeks, so sadly i might have missed some stuff, yes. it seemed to slow down once i managed to find a way to keep the catfish fed. and now it seems to be at a standstill, the gar ate yesterday for the first time, so i hope the abuse has stopped. I have not been ignoring it by any means, the first attack happened over night and was pretty bad, looked almost like the catfish tried to swallow the gar tail first, and like i said, after that, any change was so subtle that i could not tell. the last time i left town, and came back, i did see some noticeable change. I know how to treat fish ailments, and to be quite honest i never use melafix because i have seen the bad in the madicine, i just wanted everyone's opinion on whether or not it could actually heal

what would a fungal infection look like?
 
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