Redtail catfish not eating

[Poseidonfernandes]

I noticed everytime i change the water of the tank it would start breathing very heavily. I noticed it once twice and everytime i change the water. I have never seen it breathing in this manner. I was using well water. So i decided to change the water to normal tap water, i changed it once twice and it was breathing perfectly fine no problem. I even did a water change yestrday and it was perfectly fine no problem in breathing even ate after 3 hrs of changing the water.

Conclusion well water was the culprit for his loss of appetite.

 

[Matteus]

Are you able to test the tds (total dissolved solids) of the well water?
I have a friend who’s fish all of a sudden started dying and the typical parameters tested fine on his well water. We tested the tds and it was over 650 ppm after a wc. We deduced that it was the spring runoff from all the snow melting. Maybe there was a rainstorm or something that could have disturbed your well water or something?

What he ended up doing was making pvc tubes that were about 2’x2” long filled with carbon and some holes drilled on the other end to filter his water, before treating it with the typical dechlorinator and salt.

Since doing this his fish are now doing better than ever, thriving and colours are popping.

Just some food for thought.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

I noticed everytime i change the water of the tank it would start breathing very heavily. I noticed it once twice and everytime i change the water. I have never seen it breathing in this manner. I was using well water. So i decided to change the water to normal tap water, i changed it once twice and it was breathing perfectly fine no problem. I even did a water change yestrday and it was perfectly fine no problem in breathing even ate after 3 hrs of changing the water.

Conclusion well water was the culprit for his loss of appetite.

If I recall correctly, you said you have had other fish in your well water and they thrived. How do you reconcile that?

 

[Poseidonfernandes]

Yes, you are absolutely right. I have other fish in that water but those fish were brought up from small in that water. So all those fish have become accustomed to that water whereas the redtail catfish was brought up from small in normal tap water. The redtail catfish was not able to adapt to the change in the water. Just to know the root cause i bought 2 baby redtail catfish, 1 was put in well water and the other in normal tap water. Both were doing extremely fine so i decided to change the other also to well water. He showed the exact same signs like the big redtail and stopped eating. I changed the water back to tap water he started eating.

 

[RTC_KEEPER]

My redtail catfish started to not eat even though he was eating normally yesterday. I did not change anything in the tank

 

[Poseidonfernandes]

My redtail catfish started to not eat even though he was eating normally yesterday. I did not change anything in the tank

Hi its better if you could open a new tread in bottom dwellers /catfish. Could you please give detailed info about tank size, water parameters, tankmates etc.