I recently received a huge Panaque. He was in a 300gal Q tank to make sure no bugglies came along with him. I've been feeding him rabbit pellets and sinking commercial catfish food. I've also been offering him whole potatoes and pumpkin. A few days ago, I added my 18" royal to the bin just to see if he'd go for the pumpkin, too. I also wanted to see if there's any conspecific aggression between the 2 cats.
Today, I went to toss a couple of spuds into the bin. I found both Panaques laying on their sides. Neither was visibly breathing.
I grabbed out the royal and placed him in a 180 with my iir sharks and red bay snooks. The monster went into a brand new 150 acrylic (I never wanted him in there as his armor will scratch that tank into oblivion). I added power heads to the 180 and hooked up a protein skimmer to the 150 and piped pure O2 into the mixing chamber. A full 10 minutes elapsed (felt like a week) before I saw the first breath taken. An hour later, both Panaques had righted themselves and began moving about their tanks.
I tested the 300gal and all readings were slightly elevated. Nothing that should have caused this stupor in the cats. I then ran the DO meter on the tank and was shocked to find a reading of only 3% dissolved O2. That's barely enough to keep the fish alive. The reading was 29% just 3 days ago. The water has a sweet smell to it and the pH had dropped from 7.4 to 7. I spun down a water sample and checked it under the scope. I found so much bacteria that I couldn't differentiate them from the average flora and fauna normally in aquarium water.
I suspect that all the starches I placed in the tank (pumpkin & potatoes), added to whatever byproduct constitutes "ash" in the pellet food, caused a fermentation process to begin on the tank. The tank was, literally, turning itself into vinegar.
Forty plus years in the hobby. I guess I'm not as smart as I thought I was. I'm reminded of an old saying we had for "OOPS"s in camp:
"They can take your brains, shove 'em up an ant's ***, and they'll bounce around like a BB in a railroad car."
Today, I went to toss a couple of spuds into the bin. I found both Panaques laying on their sides. Neither was visibly breathing.
I grabbed out the royal and placed him in a 180 with my iir sharks and red bay snooks. The monster went into a brand new 150 acrylic (I never wanted him in there as his armor will scratch that tank into oblivion). I added power heads to the 180 and hooked up a protein skimmer to the 150 and piped pure O2 into the mixing chamber. A full 10 minutes elapsed (felt like a week) before I saw the first breath taken. An hour later, both Panaques had righted themselves and began moving about their tanks.
I tested the 300gal and all readings were slightly elevated. Nothing that should have caused this stupor in the cats. I then ran the DO meter on the tank and was shocked to find a reading of only 3% dissolved O2. That's barely enough to keep the fish alive. The reading was 29% just 3 days ago. The water has a sweet smell to it and the pH had dropped from 7.4 to 7. I spun down a water sample and checked it under the scope. I found so much bacteria that I couldn't differentiate them from the average flora and fauna normally in aquarium water.
I suspect that all the starches I placed in the tank (pumpkin & potatoes), added to whatever byproduct constitutes "ash" in the pellet food, caused a fermentation process to begin on the tank. The tank was, literally, turning itself into vinegar.
Forty plus years in the hobby. I guess I'm not as smart as I thought I was. I'm reminded of an old saying we had for "OOPS"s in camp:
"They can take your brains, shove 'em up an ant's ***, and they'll bounce around like a BB in a railroad car."
