Synodontis nigriventris in a bad state

[kiwidu21]

Hello,

I come to ask for your help because I discovered yesterday that my synodontis nigriventris were sick, at a stage which seems to me to be advanced.
For the record, the aquarium is an extremely opaque blackwater (because of the tannins but also the floating plants) with quite a few coconuts and roots.
Here is the subject I had made to see the layout of the tank, today the water is much darker. It is therefore a specific S. nigriventris aquarium with a Pantodon bulcholzi.
viewtopic.php?t=50785


So I had a rare ocasion yesterday to see one of my fish except that it had a number of white spots and had trouble breathing. As it is impossible to catch a fish in all this mess, I was able to take pictures of the famous points on the Pantodon (which had nothing two days ago).


As I had no treatment on hand, I raised the temperature to 30°C (it was 18°C as it is winter and the fishroom is not heated).
I then went to look for marine aquarium salt as well as eSHa EXIT (Diaminoacridine, Viride Malachitum, Methylrosanilinii chloridum) which is for the treatment of white spot disease and velvet disease. I followed the doses indicated on the instructions, I did not put any salt for the moment.
But this morning, I see a synodontis again. More affected than the day before, the skin of the pectoral fins is torn off and the skin at the level of the tail seems moulted because this one seems intact above this "moult".





Is the medicine working?

I have the possibility of putting them in an 80l tank to do the treatment but this one is not cycled. On the other hand, it is empty so that would prevent them from drying out the skin on the roots.
The problem is that I have to take everything off to catch them, so there's a lot of potential stress.

Do you think they have a chance? What is the best solution in this case?

PS:I specify that there is no nitrite, the nitrates are below 10 and the pH is 6.7. As there are few nitrates, I do a water change every two months of about 15%.

[Shane]

From the photos, it appears that you are dealing with either a fungal or bacterial infection. Both types of infection are difficult to treat as catfishes are scale less and can not tolerate many of the medications used to treat these types of infections.

I would recommend Pimafix as a treatment if it is available in France. You may not be able to save the animals, but I think a broad spectrum anti fungal/ antibacterial is your best chance.

In terms of fish first aid, unless you can identify the ailment with complete accuracy, your first step is to complete a water change. A good water change can bring about miracles. Using medications without knowing exactly what you are trying to cure usually just makes things worse as catfishes are so sensitive to many medications.

I suspect the fish are sick because the temperature was far too low and weakened their immune system. Combine this with the lack of water changes, which may have allowed high levels of fungus or bacteria to develop, and you have a recipe for sick fish.

If I was in your situation, I would perform a 25% water change, stabilize the temperature (30C is way too high), and treat with Pimafix. If you can save the fish keep the tank at an appropriate temperature and greatly increase the volume and frequency of water changes. Best of luck.
-Shane

[sturiosoma]

I would get the temp around 27c and treat with API general cure or something similar and treat the whole tank do not move fish, and increase oxygenation

Jeanne

[Narelle]

I would disagree with adding further medications without fully diagnosing the root issue. In my opinion your choice of medication was appropriate. I would have called this ich, and the medications I've used successfully to treat ich in catfishes in the past also contained malachite green (viride malachium).
Shane, what makes you think it's fungal?

I feel that the state of your Synodontis is a secondary problem to your initial infection.

A water change probably wouldn't hurt, as long as you have a means of adding water that matches your typical tank conditions. (I also keep blackwater tanks, and I don't usually keep a fast source of tannins on hand so I know a bigger water change can be tough on short notice.)

PS:I specify that there is no nitrite, the nitrates are below 10 and the pH is 6.7. As there are few nitrates, I do a water change every two months of about 15%.

Are these your current values, or the typical values? Have you tested pH since medicating?

To me, the sloughing skin and loss of fin tissue suggests there is something in the water essentially giving your fish chemical burns. I would suspect that either the medication has altered the water chemistry or the medication itself has a component that your Synodontis cannot tolerate. I don't think fish medications are made with blackwater tanks in mind at all.

My first response would be to run tests to determine if its the med itself or if the medication has altered the water chemistry, then work on removing the problem from the water (water changes and adding carbon in the filter will help remove the meds, though the carbon will also remove the tannins).

If you have to remove these meds, though, you still have the original issue of the disease you added the medication to address. If you end up removing this medication and replacing with another, I would consider a simpler medication (ex. something with only malachite green if it is decided this is ich) that may not be as harsh on the synos.

[kiwidu21]

If I follow your answers, the best is to eliminate the product and do a water change? But suddenly how to treat ich if the diagnosis of the initial disease is the right one?
The filter of this tank is equipped with a UV lamp but I removed it because it is indicated on the instructions of the product that this can reduce the effectiveness of the product. Should I turn it on?
I have water with similar parameters but this one has no tannins, is this disturbing?
I did not know that black water could have harmful effects when combined with a treatment.
the parameters were taken a week ago. I just checked the nitrates and it's below 10. I can't test the pH because I usually do it at work but being on vacation I don't have access to the device. I only have test strips that show me a value between 6.5 and 7.

I'm a little lost in your proposed solutions, could other photos of affected fish (but less affected than the one photographed) help you guide me?

[kiwidu21]

Hello,
the duration of the treatment ends and unfortunately I still have affected fish.
I lowered the temperature to 27°C as you advised me. As we are at the end of the treatment, I turned on the UV in the hope that it destroys the free form of the ich.

As some fish always have spots, can I continue with a salt treatment? (after eliminating the previous product)
Or is there another disease that causes whiteheads and is more persistent?

[sturiosoma]

Seeing as how your med did not work or maybe made things worse I would stop and do a large water change and substrate cleaning at least 50% if you know what your tank ph is compared to your water change source, I would also add carbon to my filter and then try the salt treatment

Jeanne

[kiwidu21]

I just did the water change and put the activated carbon in the filter.
As it is a 160l and my filter has a flow rate of 800l/h, after how long can I carry out the salt treatment?
Is starting with a dose of 5g/l of salt correct?

What is surprising is that some synodontis have nothing and are in great shape. So do you really have to treat the entire tank or do a hospital tank?

[sturiosoma]

Have you noticed any improvement in raising the temp, and I have very little experience in using salt but the basic recipe is 1t. per gal. and I personally would treat the entire tank

Jeanne

[kiwidu21]

Currently I have no more affected fish. I have secondary infections but they seem to be healing slowly. I don't know if it was the treatment or the UV that was effective, but for the moment I don't do the salt treatment if there are no symptoms.
I therefore lost two synodontis out of the 7 present. I did not think that a drop in temperature could cause so much damage, I would be careful from now on.
Thank you so much for all the help.

[Viktor Jarikov]

Sorry about being too late. IMHumO you had a variety of good advices above. Just several thoughts:

What is the lowest end of the recommended water temp range for S. nigriventris? I'd predict 18 C is way too cold, which caused stress, which in turn caused disease, just as Shane had said. Bumping it up to 30 C was too high and too sudden, hence the worsening, could have been worse for all tank mates.

I know peers who employ heavy plant filtration and who don't do WCs for years except top offs. I never do it and if I did, IDK if I'd go with no WCs.

The “molted skin” might simply be excess slime.

The white crumbs on the syno do resemble ich or could also be epistilis.

The standard medication for ich and a host of other parasites is formalin + Malachite Green or similar formulations. I am surprised to not see formalin mentioned in the ingredients, whereas formalin is responsible for the 99%+ of the parasite-killing action.

I’d like to know more on what Shane said: "Both types of infection are difficult to treat as catfishes are scale less and can not tolerate many of the medications used to treat these types of infections." I practice kind of crude, bucket medicine on our fish and so far on average I've not noted any difference between scaled and scaleless fish response. Probably ignorant and would like to learn more.

[Shane]

Viktor,
Many fish medications literally say in the warning section "Do not use on scale less fishes" or recommend a reduced concentration when treating scale less fishes.
-Shane

[Viktor Jarikov]

Thank you Shane. Yes, I've known about this warning. What I am saying I keep mostly catfish in crazy communities with many other fish and medicate all tanks the same, when I must, and haven't observed a notable adverse reaction in catfish vs any other. Exception occur, like with gulper catfish just last week, but this is pretty rare in my experience. I am just worried I am missing something and looking to learn from seniors like yourself.

[Shane]

Viktor,
I would just be careful to heed any specific warnings from the manufacturer. I am sure they are on there based on lab testing while developing the medication. I have used medications (with good effect) on catfishes that had a warning on the label. However in these instances the fish were either placed in a short duration dip outside the aquarium or I applied the medication directly to an infected area. For example formalin (per academic papers) is lethal to channel cats at 100 ppm. However, I have had a lot of success using a diluted formalin bath for 30 seconds on wild caught catfishes to remove external parasites.
-Shane

[Viktor Jarikov]

Thank you greatly. Since you are a avid collector of fish from the wild, I guess the formalin treatment is one of your go to methods and it is valuable to know. But you gotta know what you are doing - the concentration of formalin and the bath duration, so that it does kill the parasites but not kill or sicken badly the fish.

Yes, a colleague just sent me a page with some formalin info - 25ppm little effect, 50ppm great effect, 100ppm kills channel cats.

Do you have a write-up on how you determine / know concentration and duration? Sure temp matters, but pH? TDS? etc.?

Going back to the heart of the matter, we are speaking of a comparison - scaled vs scaleless - but seem to slide to catfish without reference to scaled fish.