Melting Face?

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

Dubeckyj

Candiru
MFK Member
Mar 22, 2011
112
2
48
Canada
Hey all. My gator has a problem. It looks as though his face is decaying. When it first started, I thought it was just his pattern breaking up, but now it doesn't look natural at all. Nothing has appeared on his FLG or TSN tankmates, so I don't know if it's water quality or parasite related.

I do weekly water checks, but I ran out of ammonia & NH3/NH4 stuff on my other tanks this morning. Last week was 0's across the board, though. The Ph is 8.2, but that's what they've lived in since June with no issues.

Has anybody encountered this before? How do I get my gator's face back?

DSC_0142.jpg

DSC_0141.jpg
 
Weekly. Check the water, then change it. All my tanks have an over-the-back filter with a higher capacity than the tank size, in addition to two sponge filters. They're also all planted.

8.2 is what comes out of my tap. It's well water, not city, so there's no added chemicals like chlorine or fluoride. The LFS I get these guys from also has water ~8 Ph, so it's not like they're in Ph shock. I have 3 other gars, plus an ungodly amount of catfish that have lived in this Ph (some going on 3 years) without caustic burn looking patterns on their face. But, I only have one gator, so maybe the other fish's threshold doesn't set a precedent?
 
The obvious solution is to lower the PH (SLOWLY) and see if that helps. How many fish are in the tank? If it's overstocked , you may need to think about doing twice a week water changes.
 
fwprawn said:
The obvious solution is to lower the PH (SLOWLY) and see if that helps. How many fish are in the tank? If it's overstocked , you may need to think about doing twice a week water changes.
Click to expand...

I appreciate the input, so I don't want to sound ungrateful for saying this, but...

The fish has perfectly patterned discolored markings on his face, and not the rest of his body. It appears to be melting away like a caustic or alkaline burn (which could be attributed to high or low ph) but why wouldn't that affect the rest of his body? And why wouldn't it be random or all-encompassing, instead of looking like the guy found a way to tattoo himself with aquarium gravel. I'm not entirely convinced it's ph related, so what's the benefit of guessing when it could be some sort of disease, and I'd just be subjecting the other fish to stress?

It's a 90 gal with a 9" gator, 8" FLG, and 13" TSN (who's fat ass is getting evicted soon) with a 125 gal overhanging filter & two 60 gal sponges flowing just enough air to not create a boiling-water-level disturbance.

I'd like to find out what it is before I start blaming water quality. Could it also be stress related? The TSN gets quite active at night, and could be constantly disturbing the poor guy. My sleep is constantly interrupted, and I almost have similar markings on my face from clawing at it in frustration.
 
don't mess with the pH, in our experience this has nothing to do with pH or water quality, but instead diet. Atractosteus gars seem to be much more susceptible to it. vary the diet and include a quality pellet like New Life Spectrum if you can get them to take it...what i have found is fastest and most effective is feeding fresh or frozen WHOLE fish...these will contain nutrients that just fillets or shrimp do not. a staple of shrimp (especially cooked) seems to lack certain key elements which prevent this sort of face erosion from happening.

obviously keep up with water quality, but don't worry about pH...altering that usually does more harm than good. keep us posted...getting on the whole fish diet seems to clear this situation up in a matter of 1-2 months--
--solomon
 
E_americanus said:
don't mess with the pH, in our experience this has nothing to do with pH or water quality, but instead diet. Atractosteus gars seem to be much more susceptible to it. vary the diet and include a quality pellet like New Life Spectrum if you can get them to take it...what i have found is fastest and most effective is feeding fresh or frozen WHOLE fish...these will contain nutrients that just fillets or shrimp do not. a staple of shrimp (especially cooked) seems to lack certain key elements which prevent this sort of face erosion from happening.

obviously keep up with water quality, but don't worry about pH...altering that usually does more harm than good. keep us posted...getting on the whole fish diet seems to clear this situation up in a matter of 1-2 months--
--solomon
Click to expand...

Thanks Slomon, I was hoping you'd chime in. The thing is, he only eats feeder comets. I have the FLG eating tetra cichlid sticks from time to time (it's hit and miss) but the gator won't consider anything that isn't orange and wiggling.

The feeders I get are too small to shove pellets down their throats, but I let them fill up on flakes beforehand. What other kind of frozen/fresh fish could I give to a 9" gator?
 
try offering hikiri massivoire pellets before switching to some form of vegetable pellets. the former smells really strongly and i have not yet met any gar that fails to accept it relatively quickly
 
One thing that I noticed helped change my gars over to non-live food was freeze-dried krill.

The bright orange color tempted them into thinking it was feeder comets, and the fact that they floated seemed to help as well.

Then, once they took the krill, I started using floating pellets (various Hikari pellets, including Carnivore). Once they recognized those as food, I added in sinking pellets like Massivore.

Another option for whole fish foods that aren't comets would be things like bait minnows, rosy reds, and if you want to go non-live, anchovies and other small frozen fish from the grocery store. Your best bet would probably be to go to a local Asian market, as they tend to carry a larger variety of those types of foods.

Good luck getting him on some more wholesome foods!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom