New Synodontis decorus not eating

[Richard B]

This fish is W/C so there could be internal parasites.

What does it look like? regular or accelerated breathing, bright or dull eyes, clear or blemished skin. full bodied or hollow bellied, deporting normally or struggling to hold position? Perhaps a photo might help us?

Sometimes synos can take many weeks to fully settle & it would appear your fish has had no stable period since you got it, with tank changes, decor changes, fish removal. If everything is ok then it could be a matter of being patient & it taking more time in a stable environment.

[emartin]

This fish is W/C so there could be internal parasites.

What does it look like? regular or accelerated breathing, bright or dull eyes, clear or blemished skin. full bodied or hollow bellied, deporting normally or struggling to hold position? Perhaps a photo might help us?

Sometimes synos can take many weeks to fully settle & it would appear your fish has had no stable period since you got it, with tank changes, decor changes, fish removal. If everything is ok then it could be a matter of being patient & it taking more time in a stable environment.

Generally it seems to appear fine, just rarely moving and stuff.

I did notice a large white spot on its snout but figured it was from rubbing around in the bags during shipment, and I did see what appeared like a few wrinkles in its skin.

Should I try treating it with any meds? Fasting? Bloodworms?

~Ed

[RickieH]

If frozen shrimp or bloodworms don't work the loss of appetite could be from a parasite.

[emartin]

If frozen shrimp or bloodworms don't work the loss of appetite could be from a parasite.

What should I use to treat?

Immediately available medications I have are:
Had-A-Snail (copper sulfate)
QuICK Cure (malachite green I believe and formalin or formaldehyde)
Clout
Furan-2
Tetracycline
Metronidasole

A person I spoke with suggested using Quick Cure and Metronidasole as they are the mildest medications. What do you guys think?

~Ed

[andywoolloo]

I have read that Prazipro is good for treating for internal parasites in pl*cos unknown about synos?

How is your syno?

[emartin]

I have read that Prazipro is good for treating for internal parasites in pl*cos unknown about synos?

How is your syno?

He appears to be doing better now...I must stress the "appears" though. The folks at cichlid-forum.com suggested using Triple Sulfa and I added to the treating regiment 6 tablespoons of sea salt (29gallon tank) and 1tsp of Metronidasole...all of them except for the salt added daily. I also have been feeding only Jungle's anti parasite pellets which have metronidasole and praziq in it. He didn't touch ANY of the pellets (neither did my cichlids when I fed them it for the hell of it...it must taste horrible then..).

However today after 4 days of treatment I fed frozen bloodworms and it looks like he ate it all. He didn't immediate come out to eat it but after I left for five minutes and came back to look I saw him move to the front near where some worms fell and rushed back into the cave (it was no longer hiding and barely moving..). It wouldn't come out again while I was watching to get the rest of the bloodworms cube so I turned the tank light off and left for a half hour and when I came back it looked like 90% of the worms were gone.

So now I believe he really did have a parasite after all. I'm going to be continuing treatment and fast for a few days then try to get him to eat my cichlid pellets, and if he eats them then I'll consider reintroducing him into the tank soon.

Thanks for the concern though. Since I started treatment though it appears his face injury from shipment has rapidly healed...

~Ed

[andywoolloo]

yeah!! great to hear! I was worried for him. They can never resist the bloodworms!

[emartin]

yeah!! great to hear! I was worried for him. They can never resist the bloodworms!

Well personally I was going to try Clout if Triple Sulfa didn't work. From my understanding Clout is VERY nasty to scaleless fish, though when I called Aquarium Products they said when they looked up testing trials they didn't find any indication that they had tested it on Mochokidae fish so were unsure if it would affect them or not. The way I saw it, if I did not get this guy eating soon he will die, so I was debating whether I should risk its health with a strong medication or not...

I am glad that I got a good result today...now I just need to see if I can repeat that result in a few days with flakes or pellets...

[andywoolloo]

I have heard Clout is pretty wicked.

Maybe can he eat frozen food for awhile, just to get beefed up? My synos love bloodworms, shrimp, krill, spirulina shrimp.

Oh and they love the Hikari sinking canivore tabs and the Omega one sinking shrimp pellets. And they like the earthworm sticks sinking. Oh and the Hikari Ciclhid Gold sinking pellets.

[emartin]

I have heard Clout is pretty wicked.

Maybe can he eat frozen food for awhile, just to get beefed up? My synos love bloodworms, shrimp, krill, spirulina shrimp.

Oh and they love the Hikari sinking canivore tabs and the Omega one sinking shrimp pellets. And they like the earthworm sticks sinking. Oh and the Hikari Ciclhid Gold sinking pellets.

The decorus in the main tank loves the Dainichi pellets so I don't see why he can't start eating them right away...after the decorus in the main tank starts smelling them he actually tries to dare himself to go out into the daylight (quite funny to watch actually, it'll go out a few inches then rush back in, and when he wants to go to the other side's save he rushes like a bat out of hell to get there...when he gets brave enough though he'd stay out in the light for a good amount of minutes eating whatever pellets or frozen food I fed)...and then goes after the 3mm pellets.

I am going to be feeding krill soon..probably tomorrow to the main tank so I may drop 1 or 2 pieces in the 29gallon for him....I'd rather take it slow though and fast him for a few days.

~Ed

Edit:
Clout actually seemed VERY harmless to my juvenile haps when I treated them with it. Obviously c*****ds are much tougher than catfish though so that may be why.

However either the clout or the disease itself severely infected a 2" albino bushy nose pl*co that I had to euthanize...

..which is another reason why I'm iffy about treating the catfish with it...I guess I could add it and if he spazzes out immediately do several major water changes for example...

[emartin]

So far good news.... He appears to have been eating every day for the past days and greatly appreciated a treat of Krill yesterday, a food that last time I fed he wouldn't touch and the food would just rot away in the tank...

I'm going to continue treatment until next week when I will consider re-introducing him back into the main tank.

[Richard B]

Good news Marduk!

[emartin]

In preparation for a shipment of fish coming in tuesday (I sometimes use the quarantine as a temporary growout if the fish I am growing out are too small to put in the 120g) I moved the catfish back into the main tank.

Time will tell if the other decorus will welcome his new tankmate or bring on hell like he was doing last time... I just hope now that he's eating well that he will either fight back or just keep on trying to ignore the other one. If I have to though I am prepared to put lots of pvc pipes for hiding in there until they accept eachother's presence...

~Ed

[andywoolloo]

I hope he does well, keep us posted!

[emartin]

They keep on fighting every hour or so....none are seriously injured though.


I bought a 2ft long 4"-diameter piece of PVC and had it cut in half for the catfish to use hopefully.


Personally as long as they don't kill each other and they both still eat I am not going to worry about them... I am either going to eventually buy a 3rd decorus to try and divide the aggression three ways or I am going to get 2-4 S. petricolas to use as dither catfish...

None of that is going to be for a while though.

Wish me luck guys.... I don't think the new one ate any pellets today, but when I feed krill later this week I'll keep an eye out to see if he pops out to grab a piece like the other one does...

~Ed

[emartin]

For a few weeks the dominant one kept terrorizing the littler one and cutting up his skin pretty bad.

Well, good news this week. While I do see the dominant one occasionally chase it away from himself, I never see them scuffle badly anymore or non-stop pursuits and they seem to be getting a long. In fact, I've noticed the past few days that now both of them are coming out to get food, not one or the other like it has been.

I'll post again in a few weeks with an update.

[andywoolloo]

good news!