Skin problem with Ageneiosus cats

[Industrial]

Right now I have three ageneiosus cats. One is in a 165 and the others are in a 20g for now.

Every time something pecks at my catfish (including feeder rosy reds) they get these weird spots that look kind of like fungus.

I've had rosy reds and feeder gambusia do this to the cats, and the last one got really messed up from the gambusia.

I've tried melafix and pimafix and I treated the other two with quinine sulfate before thinking that they had ick, but every time something touches them it seems to come back.

Does anybody have any ideas on what is going on? Here is a recent picture.

[Silurus]

It doesn't look like fungus, and looks more like excessive mucus being produced to me.

Did you test your water parameters? Excessive mucus is sometimes a sign of bad water quality. Or it could be that your feeders are irritating the cats too much by their incessant pecking.

[Industrial]

I always change half the water every week. Also, this tank has only been setup this week and I switched over my old filters so the tank wouldn't need to cycle. The tank is only stocked with a 7" Hydrolycus tatauaia, 4" midnight catfish and 4" Orinocodoras eigenmanni at this point.

Perhaps it is the stress coat that is damaged. There is open sores though that have puss or small fungal patches on it. Could this just be because the cat has poor defense other than it's slime coat?

Also, ammonia is at 0, same with nitrite, pH is at 7.8 and hardness is at 6-7 dgh. I cannot test for nitrate, but considering the gravel is all new I am going to say that is close to 0.

[grokefish]

Ph is too high.

[Industrial]

I don't really want to alter my pH because it would be extremely difficult to get pH and hardness of new water exact each water change and I could imagine the instability of the new water would do more damage.

[wrasse]

Hi Industrial,
you clearly like Amazonian catfish. Your fish are all wild-caught so that gives you a good idea what water they need. The skin of Ageniosus is tough enough to survive in the wild, but that's not the issue here.
To avoid stressing the fish, you have to match the water you supply to the fish you keep. If that's not possible then you might have to consider matching the fish you keep to the water you can supply.

[Bas Pels]

I do agree with Industrial that it is not a good idea to change your water. After all - a lot of work without seeing any fish

BUT that will mean you should keep other fishes - which do agree with your water

[Industrial]

Honestly though, keeping fish that thrive in my water conditions narrows it down mostly to livebearers, African cichlids and a few other African fish. In all of the US, pH is usually 7.5-8 from what I have seen and choosing only fish that come from that pH range sounds a little excessive.

While I am fairly certain the skin problem was caused by the gambusia in the first place (which after talking to my boss, gambusia in large numbers will damage other fish). So is everybody saying that it is healing slowly because the pH is too high?

Also, he seemed to be healing really poorly, so I decided to add some melafix and now he is good as new, except for some excess slime coat for the time being.

[grokefish]

You wanna stop adding stuff to your water and start taking stuff out.

Melafix is good stuff but the issue in my eyes is the ph. I have found that doradids and woodcats suffer skin and eye problems with water over neutral, this is just my experience.
This usually manifests itself as cloudy eyes and slimy skin.

[wrasse]

You could also keep rainbow fish, Central American cichlids, brackish fish, to name but a few.

So is everybody saying that it is healing slowly because the pH is too high?

- Yep

[Viktor Jarikov]

Unless, Ageneiosus cats are known to be particularly sensitive to the pH's higher than 7.5, I do not see pH as the reason. Vast majority of fish, I've read many times even here on PCF, should be comfortable in water with pH of 6 to 8, as long as it is stable. I am, yet, open to education.

I have found that doradids and woodcats suffer skin and eye problems with water over neutral, this is just my experience.

I do not doubt it but in my experience, I did not notice anything like that with the many types of both fish. My pH is 7.0-7.4 in the tanks. In the basement pond, pH is ~7.6 and the 4 doradids in there have been doing fine, at least to my untrained superficial glance.

The symptom still appears abnormal and disturbing and it appears to be important to track down the root cause. You said you have 3. What's happening with the other two? If they are in a different tank, you could try to
(1) emulate the conditions of the fist tank there, that is add the same feeders at the same approx. density or
(2) move one of your other cats in with the one in question and see what happens, or
(3) change the pH slightly, temporarily and see what happens.
(4) do not use live feeders or separate the fish into its own tank and keep a close eye on the fish for other signs of discomfort, eating, growth, etc.

Experimenting is the only feasible way I see because this problem cannot be ignored.

[wrasse]

Vast majority of fish, I've read many times even here on PCF, should be comfortable in water with pH of 6 to 8, as long as it is stable.

I for one, would not go along with that. A ph of 8 or near 8 is too excessive for most South American fish (wild) to live in. Its wishful thinking and not fair on the fish.

These fish have evolved over time, adapting perfectly to their environment. So isn't the key to their health and well-being, to try to match those conditions?

[Bas Pels]

In many cases, Amasonia and Zouth America are mixed up

I do agree with Wrasse for fish from Amazonia - but not for fish from other parts of the continent. In Uruguay, for instance, the normal pH is around 7.5. I think these fishes will not mind a stable 8.0

[MatsP]

I think it's a bit of a sweeping statement to even say that Amazonas is "one thing". Sure, most waters in Amazonas is lower than pH 7 for most of the year. But there are some white-water rivers in the Amazon region where pH is above 7. Some rivers are way below 7, Rio Negro waters can be as low as around pH 4.

Interestingly, my experience is that MOST fish do perfectly fine in water with a pH higher than 7.

--
Mats

[Industrial]

I have been planning on doing softwater experiments and after reading about it, many people claim that hardness is much more important than pH due to osmoregulation, and with higher pH comes much harder water and possibly by doradids and woodcats getting skin problems in "high pH" water, it could possibly mean that the hardness was really high.

[MatsP]

That does sounds like a plan!

--
Mats