Please I need help with my SA Redtail Catfish

[KristinaV]

We picked up an 18 inch Asian Redtail Catfish about 3 weeks ago she has not been eating very much at all and turns her nose to most food we gave her feeder fish and all she did was kill them the only thing she will eat in very small quanity is chicken. I thought these fish would eat anything. She also has not gone to the bathroom since we have gotten her. I was told these fish would eat anything and she wont eat. Please help she is so beautiful I dont anything to happen to her she is in a 125 gallon tank by herself for now and is very active a sometimes her gills flip out a little. By the way she looks more like a South American to me.

[Fish Soup]

How long has the tank been running? Was it cycled when you added her? Any tests being done? Numbers for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, as well as pH, would be helpful.

If this tank was just set up 3 weeks ago you should be doing several large water changes a week to control your water quality. Ammonia and nitrite must be kept as close to zero as possible. The only way to do this until you cycle is by doing water changes.

Asian and SA red tails are very different fish. A simple google image search should give you the answer. Both get large, but the SA is a tank buster. You will need a pond.

Don

[KristinaV]

Thank you. I did not know I needed to change the water so drastically. It is a South American she was a rescue from a 40 gallon tank. We will keep her until we cant, then we will donate her to the aquarium. We are going to try our hardest to grow with her. I dont know how quickly she grows but if it takes a year or so we may be able to really make something great. We will be moving her to a 230 gallon in the next couple of months, this was a quickie put together because I found out maintaining her in a pond would be impossible in our climate.

[Fish Soup]

Yes, you'll need to do 30 to 50% a day for a few days if this tank is new. Use a gravel vac and get all the uneaten food and waste out.

But before you start you really should run to your LFS and pick up a master test kit plus a nitrate test. Check the pH of the tank and your source water. Water in the NE tends to be soft which allows for pH swings. If they differ by more than a very few tenths you need to do smaller water changes, but more often. If they are still the same, do 50% a day for a few days. It's very important to get the ammonia and nitrite out of the system.

Do a search on "Bio Filtration". Getting this set up before you got the fish would have saved you a lot of work and the fish a lot of stress.

Also research the adult size of this fish before you get too involved. There really is no standard home aquarium that can house these fish into adulthood.

Don

[medaka]

Hi
Have you read this 'sticky in the south american everything else' forum http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... hp?t=10494
However as fishsoup says water quality needs to be monitored, very good water quality is essential when keeping these.

She also has not gone to the bathroom since we have gotten her

RTC's tend to produce lots of urine, I have in the past looked after many of these at a time and very rarely noticed solid waste, even in the day(s) after a heavy feeding, these fish were kept in a aquaria of some 450 gallons(UK) which was heavily filtered, the fish themselves were fed on differing types of white fish every 4th day, but; because they produce loads of urine the ammonia content of the water was very high.a 40% water change was done on their tank for three days after feeding.

sometimes her gills flip out a little

this is probably signs that the ammonia content of the water is irritating the gills,this needs to be kept under control or the fish will go on to develop flared gills.
If these fish are fed oily fish the urine trail is more obvious. When fed with white fish it is hard to see at a glance the discharging ammonia. But when fed oily fish a bright yellow urine discharge is seen.

[KristinaV]

She is turning red and her gills are swollen and she has a red heart shape on her. I feel so bad I have been doing the water changes and sometimes she swims around but for the most part she swims upward (not to get air). I am changing the water right now again but it doesnt look good. If anyone knows a miracle please help!! I wish the previous owner would have told us all this, he was going to college and just wanted to get rid of her. We had no clue we are pond people.

[metallhd]

hi - with your fish gasping at the surface and turning red after frequent water changes, might I ask how you are conditioning the water? Are you using a chlorine removal agent if your water supply uses chlorine/chloramine?

[KristinaV]

I have been adding tetrabond as per instructions to remove chlorine. She has burns and her gills tweek out, she is doing better today, she isnt totally turning red, but from what I am reading it seems to be ammonia poisoning, I didnt know they urinated so much and my 135 gallon must not be big enough. If you know of anyway to help her get better, please help me. I am calling aquariums today, hopefully it isnt to late. The kid who got her in the first place is a real jerk. I would have never taken her out of the wild. Im a Pond person, channel catfish and koi.

[madf1man]

Man I,m glad to hear she is better. At any rate these are tuff fish. I would get with local fish store and get one of the products designed to help fish with their slime coat.Make sure to use plenty of chlorine remover.Typically to much won,t hurt and you can usually get the 2 suggestions above in one product.Test kits for your amonia and nitrates and again there are products sold to help stabilize an unstable tank. Smaller more frquent water changes are better than larger less frequent.To much of this and she,ll loose the whiskers and will be a lasting memory for all

[KristinaV]

There is no doubt about it she is dying or will die, I cannot keep up with her she releases to much ammonia, she is burnt. I cant get in touch with the aquarium and cant stand to look at her anymore. Im going to keep trying the aquarium if I dont get anyone I am going to put her in a huge lake and hope she survives, lord knows she has no chance here with us. She is doing better today but she is requiring a 50 percent water change a day, I missed 1 day and she turned red all over, she looked better this morning and then started turning red again, plus she does have the burns and it looks like only 1 side of gills are working. Its only a matter of time if she is here with us. If anyone has any resources to care for her or any ideas of where she can go please help.

[MatsP]

I know that you don't want this fish to die, but PLEASE do not put the fish in a lake. It's not a native fish, and it is NOT a good thing to introduce a non-native fish in a wild environment. Add to that the fact that the fish is not well, which could be caused by some sort of virus or bacteria. I don't think you want to be responsible for the potential death of a bunch of native fish, because you introduced some bug that killed them all...

If you can not keep the fish, please uthenase it, or find somewhere it can go, but PLEASE DO NOT RELEASE it in a non-native environment. There are enough examples of where this has gone wrong before...

--
Mats

[madf1man]

maintaining amonia levels in a 125 gal tank should be pretty easy to do assuming you have proper filtration for this size tank.At 3 weeks old the tank should pretty much be stablized and should be easy to bring back into ck. As far as getting rid of the fish I feel resonably sure that there would be a fish store locally that would be glad to take her.Call them all before you get her put to sleep.Do not release it in local waters as this would be a far worse death. promise?????????????????????

[Fish Soup]

I really think the best thing you can do right now is continue the water changes. But without water test results it's all a guess. The age of the tank plus the problems you are reporting points strongly to this being a water quality problem. But to be sure we need to see the numbers.

If you are unable to get a test kit (about $30) then please take a sample of both the tank and your tap water to your LFS. You want the actual numbers on ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH for both. Do not accept "all's OK", get the numbers and post them here.

Also, we need to know the type of filtration you are running. But whatever type/brand you are running it should have a "bio media". Make sure you do not clean this. It is the part of your filter that becomes populated with the benifical bacteria that control water quality. Just rinsing it in straight tap water is enough to kill off these good germs.

Don

[KristinaV]

I have good filtration bio media I dont know the name my husband did research and got 2 way more then adequate for the tank size, it is actually 2 filter built into 1 so it is 4 bio filters going at once. I will check my numbers now. Like I said though I cannot continue like this I missed 1 water change and now she is red with burns, 1 set of gills are swollen red and not working. I need to find another place for her, I can never maintain this kind of fish, I thought (I read) I would need to wash the filters and do a water change once a week. When I miss 1 day she starts swimming with her head up and doesnt stop until I do a water change then she goes into shock and then she is fin e again for about 10 hours, then the process starts all over again. And Euthanize a fish????????? I will post exacts of everything for Don, thank you for your help. I now the nitrates are high I dont have exact numbers but will get them for you.

[medaka]

With what you are saying the damage to the gills was well under way long before you rescued the fish. and with the fish already 18 inches, your tank is way to small for the correct housing and husbandry of these large catfish, it seems that your are discribing a fish that is struggling to breath properly under good water conditions and every time the water conditions starts to deterriate the fish is showing extreme signs of distress. Obviously this is distressing to you also to see this fish act in the ways you describe.

And Euthanize a fish?????????

Sorry but This may be the best thing for the fish .hard to do I know, but the best thing for the fish never the less.
However saying all this, maybe you could contact a local Aquarist society in your area and ask someone who has had experience with large fish to take a visual look, and give you on the spot advice as wiether the fish needs to be Euthanized or not.

and please don't release it into your native waters, it will only die a slower death in them.

[Radius]

These fish need immense filtration. They can actually kill themselves by regurgitating stomach acid and burning their gills. This is probably what happened at some point to the poor fishie.

As a note, a full grown adult needs at least 1500 gallons to itself. I've seen these fish reach over 5 feet in length, it's an impressive sight.

If you have one of these in a smaller tank, I would really reccomend a fluidized bed filter. They are superb at rapidly consuming ammonia and nitrites, but cause nitrate spikes. However, if you can keep that under control, you can house a ret tail i a somewhat smaller tank than it actually needs.

I'm sorry to hear you're having such difficulty, they are such beautiful fish.

[KristinaV]

It was in a 40 gallon tank before I got her, I didnt see any signs of distress until the past few days, I just thought the change in enviroment stopped her from eating. She had eaten the same day as we got her. Maybe this kid was just passing the buck. I will look for more assistance tomorrow. Everything last night made me think she would be dead this morning and she wasnt, but as the day goes on she becomes distressed again. I did specific tests for ph nitrate nitrite and ammonia, I had just finished a water change and everything was good, all numbers were either none or very low. How did this kid maintain her in a 40 gallon and I cant even keep her alive in a 135. What is going on here?

[Blackwater]

Has anyone mentioned ammolock or amquel? They detoxify ammonia and help short term. If it were me, I would do massive water changes and get some (large quantities) of Bio-Spira. It is probably an excercise in futility though. With an 18" a 125 is already too small, by the time you get a 230-240 set up, it will be too small as well. What you need is a 2000 gallon indoor pond, seriously, that's my plan. I won't even think of getting one untill the pond is done.