I recently brought home a fat head bichir (Poly. Weeksii) into a tank with a almost exactly the same sized buettikoferi (Poly. Palmas Buettikoferi) and a syno schoutendeni. The fat head has been eating well but it looks like he (I think) was warring with the other two bottom dwellers for space and has a slight tear in one of his pectorals. What is more worrying is that under one of his gill coverings he has something poking out that doesn't look like a fluke, but almost like a single external gill poking out. He didn't have this earlier and is well above the size where his external gills should have receeded. The fish is still behaving totally normally and I can't find any information on large parasites such as that. Any insight would be much appreciated.
Weeksii with strange gill issue
- Thread starter NoahKingGroh
- Start date
Welcome aboard
After 5 post you will be able to post a pic. It could very well be a parasite. Most wild caught bichir may have parasites on them.
I work at the fish store I bought him from and he was quarantined for 2 weeks before it came into the store and has been in the store for another 2-3 weeks so I was fairly confident that any issues it could have would have already cropped up. I cant post a picture quite yet but it almost looks bristleworm-esque and was curious if anyone had seen anything large like that. His head still looks completely fine and not pock marked like what usually happens with flukes and other parasites. Will definitely be keeping an eye on it because so far I can't find anything like it on the internet.
N
NoahKingGroh
, Pics would help, but with weeksii they are know to keep external gills for a long time. This was a pic of my old weeksii at 7" with quite large external gills showing. It was not until about 13" did they fade away, even then there was a bit of a 'nubin' for a bit there.
DMD I think you are right, I'm now quite sure it is one residual gill. Idk why its on one side but not the other but that is certainly what it is. Interesting that the Weeksii keep those gills for so long. No other Poly. I've had has had external gills past about 3".