What's happening?

[Oscaric]

As far as I know, these happen in one of two scenari:
- Just got ordered. Some channas have a hard time with being moved in a bag, they tend to easily develop fungus.
- Has been in a tropical setup for an extended period of time.

From what you told us, it has tank mates. Tank mates are a no-no. Pacus will bully and eat it. Bichirs unless they are Senegalus will harass and eat it. And most importantly, these fish require high temperatures, which channas don't tolerate.

This is the perfect example of what happens to a channa that has tropical tankmates, in a bare bottom tank, in year round very high temperatures.

What this channa needs is an unheated tank (15 to 23°C year round, with peaks of 23 during summer and lows of 15-18 during winter), a whole lot of plant cover to feel secure and be active, no tank mates to bully him (that means no tank mates period, at all, ever) and before all of that, he needs a QT tank with a treatment against fungus. But to be completely honest, it rarely works when it's been kept in these conditions to the point of developing the fungus.

I hope I'm wrong, and wish you luck. If you save him, it'll reward you fully once kept in the right conditions. I just find it sad it was left in this state before trying to find informations.

Hey Madou thanks for your swift reply. You're right. I have done a ton of research for a week or 2 now and i am gonna have to buy a chiller! Btw, what if i kept it in pairs? will it be ok? without the bichirs and pacus.

I have already quarantined him. He is getting better after ytd. I've applied pimafix and i would say the fungus is about 50-60% gone. Some good stuff it is!

 

[Oscaric]

As far as I know, these happen in one of two scenari:
- Just got ordered. Some channas have a hard time with being moved in a bag, they tend to easily develop fungus.
- Has been in a tropical setup for an extended period of time.

From what you told us, it has tank mates. Tank mates are a no-no. Pacus will bully and eat it. Bichirs unless they are Senegalus will harass and eat it. And most importantly, these fish require high temperatures, which channas don't tolerate.

This is the perfect example of what happens to a channa that has tropical tankmates, in a bare bottom tank, in year round very high temperatures.

What this channa needs is an unheated tank (15 to 23°C year round, with peaks of 23 during summer and lows of 15-18 during winter), a whole lot of plant cover to feel secure and be active, no tank mates to bully him (that means no tank mates period, at all, ever) and before all of that, he needs a QT tank with a treatment against fungus. But to be completely honest, it rarely works when it's been kept in these conditions to the point of developing the fungus.

I hope I'm wrong, and wish you luck. If you save him, it'll reward you fully once kept in the right conditions. I just find it sad it was left in this state before trying to find informations.

Hey Madou thanks for your swift reply. You're right. I have done a ton of research for a week or 2 now and i am gonna have to buy a chiller! Btw, what if i kept it in pairs? will it be ok? without the bichirs and pacus.

I have already quarantined him. He is getting better after ytd. I've applied pimafix and i would say the fungus is about 50-60% gone. Some good stuff it is!

 

[Madou]

Depending on where you are from, you may not need a chiller.
If you're from east asia, I guess you do, though.

As for pairs, sadly it isn't that easy with channas.
If you add a channa now, chances are he'll get eaten.
The only valid way of obtaining a pair is to buy 6 that you all introduce at once, and pray two of them bond together and form a pair. It usually works, but you may very well end up with 6 fishes that cannot cohabit.

Now, since we're talking about bleheris, I actually had 6 cohabit for the best of a year in a tank designed for two of them. Granted, I had a pair form, and it all went down from there!
So if you don't have a pair, you may be able to keep all six, but you'll need a tank bigger than the species actually requires. 200L should do alright, but as for all species, the bigger, the better. It'll require an extensive system of plants and floating cover, with as little lines of sight as possible. Upside of all of this is that filtration is mostly irrelevant if you have the right amount of plants, and serves mostly as a source of water movement.