What do I do?

[fishhead0103666]

Ok so on tuesday I got a chaca chaca catfish in the mail and he was to go into my 55 gallon. I had a group of 5 angelfish keeing the cycle going and was planning to move them back ince he got here but my mother begged me to let them stay so I stupidly let them stay. The most aggressive (not really aggressive) angelfish of the group nipped him once and after that he was left alone besides being followed when he moved. The second day was good. Now today the chaca chaca catfish is floating and can’t stay on the bottom and the angelfish that nipped him was having spasms every few seconds where his body shook and was being really aggressive to the other angelfish. Like nipping every 3 seconds. Oh yeah now he has a white bump on his lower lip.
I moved the other angelfish to a different tank and he has stopped spasming and attacking but that bump really concerns me.


So my two problems are my chaca chaca catfish can’t stop floating and my angelfish that nipped him now has a bump on his lower lip.


I’ll get the parameters soon.

 

[fishhead0103666]

duanes thebiggerthebetter

 

[fishhead0103666]

Ammonia is between .5 and 1 and nitrite is 0.25.
I cant test for the rest because I lost the other bottles

 

[fishhead0103666]

I’m thinking they’re a bit high because I put in some pellets to see if he would take to them last night and he didn’t so they’ve been sitting in there since last night to now and I’m about to get them out and do a water change.

Could the catfish have swim bladder disease?

 

[kno4te]

Would get ur water checked ASAP. For the chaca chaca reduce the water level. Add some plants or decor. It should hopefully get better with time. Could be traumatic or stress.

Would watch the bump. Could be from the nip to the chaca chaca.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

I've recently read a thread on chacas where I learned they have some kind of poison on their skin for protection. I think this is the cause of the spasms and the white thing on angel's lip. Serves it right anyway.

The water parameters are bad. Appreciate your honesty about it. Few have the guts to tell like it is. If the measurement wasn't a fluke, I'd urgently add AmmoLock to detox ammonia and table salt to detox nitrite.

If chaca has been in a tank with that high ammonia and nitrite for the three days in question, any sort of issue could be expected.

Always keep track of the cycle from start to finish and for some time after too.

The pellets could not have contributed yet. It takes time to spoil and start rotting significantly.

 

[fishhead0103666]

Would get ur water checked ASAP. For the chaca chaca reduce the water level. Add some plants or decor. It should hopefully get better with time. Could be traumatic or stress.

Would watch the bump. Could be from the nip to the chaca chaca.

How low should I reduce the water level? The lowest I can get the water to and keep the canister running is about 6 inches I think. I’ll add some plants.

I've recently read a thread on chacas where I learned they have some kind of poison on their skin for protection. I think this is the cause of the spasms and the white thing on angel's lip. Serves it right anyway.

The water parameters are bad. Appreciate your honesty about it. Few have the guts to tell like it is. If the measurement wasn't a fluke, I'd urgently add AmmoLock to detox ammonia and table salt to detox nitrite.

If chaca has been in a tank with that high ammonia and nitrite for the three days in question, any sort of issue could be expected.

Always keep track of the cycle from start to finish and for some time after too.

The pellets could not have contributed yet. It takes time to spoil and start rotting significantly.

I had been considering talking to you about chacas chacas before getting it actually.

The worse thing I could do is to lie about the parameters. The odd thing is that I had done a water change the night I got him. While I’m being honest, I had the canister (cascade 1,000) on my admittedly over stocked 75 gallon. All I did was fill the tank with water, dechlorinate it, move the filter over, then add the 5 angelfish. That was on friday. On monday night I added a bucket of sand that had been from my 75 which I had let sit out for several months. There was another bucket sitting on top so it never completly dried out. Throughout the sand there was about two dozen mts that died during the months that it sat out. I stupidly put the sand in even when about 3 inches from the top of the sand it turned gray. I put it all in then stirred it up a bit then did a big water change. I pm’ed tlindsey about this and I can get you the parameters that night.

Also I added a capfull of prime and am douing an 80% water change now.

 

[fishhead0103666]

Apparently I added the sand on sunday according to the pm’s and my ammonia was reading between a 0.25 and a 0.5 and nitrites were a 0. That was after a water change and then I did a water change the next day around 70% but didn’t record the parameters.

One last question, is the angelfish safe to move to another tank or could he infect other fish with something? I want to say he couldn’t but I’m not 100% sure.

 

[fishhead0103666]

I added 4 unplugged empty whisper filters on their sides for him to hide in and whatnot. Plus I did a water change and am doing another one to lower the water level.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Thank you for the explanations. And again, the integrity is much appreciated.

You know it and I now know it, this sounds like a hail-mary, rushed, not well planned mildly put, half-assed approach, which I too have been guilty of plenty of times in my rookie years and even nowadays I stupidly, as you rightfully put it, still do it once on a while.

Garbage in - garbage out.

It always pays to have a ready, stable, cycled, and proven tank first and getting a fish second. I've killed thousands of fish, so speaking from experience.

Anyhow, it sounds you are doing the right things now. I never use Prime or SeaChem for anything, so I will trust you are detoxifying the NH3 and NO2 correctly. As I said, I use Ammolock and table salt for these needs.

It'd be useless talking chaca to me as I've never kept them, only read the accounts of those who has. Not many of them active on MFK. A couple stands out, Sharptooth Bass and Ash-water, if I recall correctly. There are several others too.

The angel can go anytime. The sore on the lip I cannot fathom to be contagious, unless it is a secondary or tertiary consequential affliction after the initial physical injury or poison action. Even then, I'd rather lessen the bioload on the struggling 55 gal.