Red-Tail not swining ???

[albino catfish]

When I bought me Red-Tail hes was 4 inches at the pet store.
I look closely at them before the purchase, I saw that all had no sickness and swining around like normal fish. And over the last few months he has had fin rot, and is sheding like I sad in my last post. He is know 6 inches and is fed every other day, One problem he sit's around all day he can
go 24 hours with out moving. They only time he moves is when i drop food in the tank, or turn off the lights in the tank then he swims too the other side of the tank to be lazy once more.
Is it possable i am feeding him too often or could it be the chemical levels in the water? that is keeping him from swiming around like all they others i see in pictures or at the pet stores.
CAN SOME ONE PLEASE HELP ?????

[djw66]

Without the aquarium parameters:

Tank size
Temperature
pH
GH
Ammonia
Nitrite
Nitrate

Water change amount/frequency

and what is being fed

As it says in the sticky at the top of this forum.

Without this information, no one can help you.

[albino catfish]

What do y'all mean by water change ???

[MatsP]

Water change is when you take some of the water out of the tank and replace it with clean water. I personally do water changes of around 20-40% in each tank, every week. The amount of water and how often you do this is depending on several things:
1. The size/specie of the occupants in the tank. Some fish are really sensitive to dirty water, while others can take quite a lot of dirt in the water before they show any bad signs.
2. Size of the tank in relation to the occupants (a single guppy in a 120g tank doesn't need as much water changes as a couple of 6" fish in a 20g tank).
3. Tap water quality. Some places have really nice tap-water, other places have quite a lot of for instance nitrate in the tap-water, which means that the water is "dirty" when it goes into the tank. Changing more often may help here.
4. What kind of filtration you have. Good/big filters -> less water changes, small/poor filters -> more water changes.

The main reason for doing water changes is that it removes nitrates, which is the end-product of the fish-poo and pee. Nitrate is mildly poisonous to the fish, and should be kept under control by changing the water often enough to keep it lower than 20 ppm (parts per million = milligram/liter).

But bear in mind that big, oppurtunistic, predators in the Pimelodidae family are generally quite docile if they are well fed, so the fact that it's not moving may well have to do with feeding every other day. If you stop feeding it for a bit, and give it a good feed say every third or fourth day, it will probably go round looking for food a bit more. Also, almost all catfish are nocturnal, active at night, so they tend to hide when the lights are on in the tank and come out when lights are off and the room is dark, so you'd see it more active at dirk hours than in daylight or with the lights on. Having plenty of shade in the tank, floating plants and such, would also make it more active.

--
Mats

[coelacanth]

Albino Catfish/38.special, assuming this isn't a wind-up (in which case, it's not funny), you really need to go to your local library, get some good recent books on how to care for aquarium fish and read them carefully.
If you do not know what is meant by water changes you are missing some of the most important basic knowledge required to maintain a healthy aquarium.
If you do not make the effort yourself to acquire this kind of knowledge, you will make it very difficult for others to help you.

[albino catfish]

I have 2 account's here albino catfish & 38. special

[superduper]

My redtail when I first had him would sit for hours without moving. I too found that when I put food in he would move and when the light was turned off too. After a while he was fine and became more active. I'm still not sure what was up with him, maybe he needed to settle into the new tank.
Just thought I'd share that experience.

[necrocanis]

Ok, sorry to bring an old post back to life, but i was digging threw some old archives trying to get a feel for the forums here, and I found this one alarming to some extent. Ok guys if you are still around, you must know that most catfish(especially pimelodids) are nocturnal, and if you don't know what that means, they play and eat at night. I have kept many large pimes over the past 8 years and they were all lazy during the day. I only feed mine when the lights are out or when they come to me for food. I hand feed them shrimp, and pet their heads and stroke their bodies. After they eat they allways rest and breath heavy to help with digestion of their food. I hope this helps and if not, I appologize for bringing up old news.