A strange thing happened to my gulper about two weeks ago. Whatever I feed him I always stuff a few Hikari Bio-Gold pellets in so he gets his nutrients. I have fed him shrimp, tilapia, flounder ect. Well two weeks ago they had a sale on muscles (fresh still in the shell). I fed him one with about 6 med sized Hik Bio-G pellets stuffed inside. He ate it like always and went back to his drift wood where he likes to hide. He was fine when the lights went out around 9:30pm. The next morning he was no longer black but gold. Yes I mean gold, it didn't even look like the same fish. In fact my wife was ready to fly off the handle cuz she thought I bought "another expensive fish". After I explainded it was the same fish I started to notice he was breathing very heavily, almost gasping for air. He stayed that color for about 48 hours then back to normall. The color was awesome but the way he was breathing was not. I through the muscles out, and decided never to feed them again. Could he be allergic to muscles?(yeah I know how stupid that sounds but I said it anyway). Has anything like this ever happened to anyone else?
Strange reaction feeding my gulper.
- Thread starter OscarRobinson
- Start date
Careful the gold color is a sign of extreme stress. You usually see it when they have been shipped over a long time or if ammonia in their tank is extremely high. That's what the gasping was about the water probably got fouled by the mussels and luckily your filter took care of the resulting ammonia. I'd still test the water and do a 25% water change to be on the safe side.
That was my first thought but water was same as always 0/0/10. No other fish were effected either. I knew the color change was not a good thing but what caused it? Wasn't the water I change 50% a week and have massive filtration on my 120. Not overstocked either: 1-12" Oscar, 1-9" P. Blochi, 1-sailfin pleco and the gulper. He didn't regurgitate(sp?) any of the muscle either. I didn't eat any of the muscles my self so they could of been bad or maybe I fed him too much at one time.
anyone here ever eat bad muscles, clams... makes us turn "green" maybe it's the same for a Gulper 