Hi, I have a senegal that is approx. 2 years old and 13". She recently stopped eating and has a hard time keeping balanced when swimming. About a week ago she started floating upside down at the surface. Does anyone else in this forum experience these problems? I have lost several sens to this, all at about 2-3 years of age. When the fish is placed in shallow water (about 1") she recovers and begins to regain her balance, but soon after will lose her balance and start floating upside down in deeper water. I have many other bichirs, and have also lost endis and ornates in a similar manner. It is not a water parameter issue, since nitrates remain under 40. I believed for a while that it was a nutritional issue leading to problems with balance(lack of vitamin Bs). I feed vitamin enriched fresh shrimp, tilapia, and shad. It does not seem to be a bacterial problem, as the fish does recover momentarily when placed in shallow water. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks
lung issue in senegalus
- Thread starter Jackskeletonzero
- Start date
Thats very strange mate i must say,i couldnt hazard a guess what it is,hopefully someone will help you on here.
Steve
Steve
i may be completely wrong butJackskeletonzero;4752208; said:
sound like bloat to me
do you feed them any freeze dried foods?
is so i would remove it from there diet
No, actually I never have fed dried food to my bichirs. In the past I have tried antibiotics for internal infections with no avail. It could be a city water quality issue, although I have moved and still have the problem. Most of the bichirs that die were raised from small juveniles (~2") to adults in about 1-2 years time. This problem has only been observed in bichirs. At one point in time I thought that the problem was due to neurotoxins used in capture (a common way to catch bichirs in the wild is to dose toxins in the water to stun the fish). I will most likely dissect the fish and look for abnormalities in the lung and organ tissues.
Need more info. Have u had the same ornaments in the tank for the last couple years? same goes for filters gravel etc. Sounds like over time poisning to me. I have seen this in my friends cichlid tanks he had some bird cage style ornament and it was slowly killing his fish he couldnt get them to last more then a year. Then he removed it changed the filter and has his cichlids for almost 2 yrs now. Find out where the water comes from even tho u moved it may come from the same place. have u tryed boiling or bottled water for a year could be something a aquarium test just cannot detect thats killing them. Where do u get the shrimps, talapia etc from could be your source of food have u tried going to different places or just one. I am just giving ideas that may help
The ornaments in the tank consist of cypress driftwood, a sand/gravel mix purchased from lowes, and a few pieces of slate. These have changed over the years, have used absolutely no gravel or ornaments with the same problems. The water test fine for lead or mercury etc (have an ICP machine at work) I buy the tilapia and shrimp from walmart, and the shad from academy(the shad was recent, have lost bichirs before w/o feeding this). Also, I have used tap water for my SW tank and the inverts are not affected by the quality. It is a mystery to me still, but thank you for the ideas. It may be a slow thiaminase poisoning, even though I give supplements.
Very strange. Never seen or heard of this happening. Bichirs are some tough cookies. Will be interested to see what's going on. Best of luck!
thiaminase poisoning i think u could be on to something cause i was doing some reading and as i understand that leds to Chastek paralysis in mink,fox's, and horses if it could do that to them I am pretty sure it can to a poly. But i thought talipia and shrimp didnt have this in it.
Years back I used to breed Nerodia (NA water snakes) and would feed f/t tilapia, salmon, and catfish. I often used reptile supplements with the B vitamin complexes. Some snakes died from thiaminase symptoms, such as convulsions, loss of coordination etc. I know feeding any fish in the cyprinidae family is just asking for trouble but these fish were not. I believe that catfish would have an appreciable amount of thiaminase due to their relations with carp like fishes (both ostariophysians). Perhaps I should limit the diet of senegalus to only inverts, and see what happens. I read in the past that clupeids(herring, sardines, shad) contain virtually no thiaminase, but I will need to brush up and see if that is still the case. As far as I know, most frozen seafood will contain some thiaminase. There was a lead poisoning problem I had when I first became interested in bichirs. Petsmart was selling plant tie weights along with their live plants- these weights tested to be lead in my lab. I had used the weights thinking that they were an inactive zinc-like the ones Lee's makes. I lost all the bichirs, and a gar. I notice that sens are the ones mostly affected by this problem even after the lead issue. I have a endli, two laps, and a ornate that are well over 4 years old with no problems. I also have a lima shovelnose, SA lung, bristlenose plec, motoro stingray, bowfin, and two spotted gars in same enclosure- all of which have never shown any problems. I have lost sens that were raised on a pellet only diet to the same mysterious balance problem(I assume that massivore does not contain sufficient amounts of thiaminase). Thanks for everyone to you time an help!