Help with my Bullhead Catfish Please!
Posted: 24 Mar 2011, 07:20
At the end of last spring my fiance and I got a few small catfish fry. We didn't know much else and had assumed they were channel catfish. I assumed they wouldn't last long, they were jet black and the largest were barely an inch long and had been wild. We had them in a 2 gallon plastic aquarium with a small filter. As expected many died off very quickly and we ended up with about 15 small tadpole looking fish I guessed.
At the end of February we decided we wouldn't be giving them away just yet, and we started looking at new aquariums. Suddenly 3 fish died on us and at first I thought the larger ones were eating the smaller ones because they were out growing their tank. A friend who is a salt water aquarist stopped by and said he thought it was Ich and gave us a bottle of Rid-Ich we started using. He said it was best to kill the ich in the old tank rather than transfer it to the new one. We started the Rid-Ich and lost 5 more fist in the next 5 days.
This is when I started looking into just what kind of fish we had and how to get them healthy. I found out they are actually bullhead catfish, and that the little aquarium they were in was a big part of the problem. There were more than I assumed in there for one thing, and that was causing stress, low air etc so we decided to move them finally.
The new aquarium is 29 gallons, I have a Aqua-flow 30 gallon filter with bacteria included (that was a big deal the FS fella said) and all I have in it now are river rocks, 2 chunks of tree root and I added their old fake plants until I can add live ones. I boiled those after spraying them down with vinegar. I added the last of a water softener I had so I can't name that exactly but its what I had always used without any problems with them before. I let the water sit a full 24 hours and got the temp up to 78 in both aquariums before I moved them. I lost a fish on both the first and second day, and the water turned very murky so I added Tetra Algae Control and the water cleared up considerably. Our friend suggested adding 2tblsp of sea salt a day and to add it in small amounts thru the day.
As of now at 9pm I am adding just under 3 Tblsp of Rid-Ich, and I take about half a cup of aquarium water in the morning and add 2 tblsp of regular sea salt and dissolve it completley and then add a small amount every few hours. I have removed the carbon bag on the filter. My fish still aren't eating, they are getting fuzz around their fins now and all look a little paler. Some of them have little white splotches still but are fading now.
I have a total of 6 left now, and I really would like to save them! Any advice would be greatly appreciated, I really have no clue what I'm doing.
Thank you so very much for you help in advance!
At the end of February we decided we wouldn't be giving them away just yet, and we started looking at new aquariums. Suddenly 3 fish died on us and at first I thought the larger ones were eating the smaller ones because they were out growing their tank. A friend who is a salt water aquarist stopped by and said he thought it was Ich and gave us a bottle of Rid-Ich we started using. He said it was best to kill the ich in the old tank rather than transfer it to the new one. We started the Rid-Ich and lost 5 more fist in the next 5 days.
This is when I started looking into just what kind of fish we had and how to get them healthy. I found out they are actually bullhead catfish, and that the little aquarium they were in was a big part of the problem. There were more than I assumed in there for one thing, and that was causing stress, low air etc so we decided to move them finally.
The new aquarium is 29 gallons, I have a Aqua-flow 30 gallon filter with bacteria included (that was a big deal the FS fella said) and all I have in it now are river rocks, 2 chunks of tree root and I added their old fake plants until I can add live ones. I boiled those after spraying them down with vinegar. I added the last of a water softener I had so I can't name that exactly but its what I had always used without any problems with them before. I let the water sit a full 24 hours and got the temp up to 78 in both aquariums before I moved them. I lost a fish on both the first and second day, and the water turned very murky so I added Tetra Algae Control and the water cleared up considerably. Our friend suggested adding 2tblsp of sea salt a day and to add it in small amounts thru the day.
As of now at 9pm I am adding just under 3 Tblsp of Rid-Ich, and I take about half a cup of aquarium water in the morning and add 2 tblsp of regular sea salt and dissolve it completley and then add a small amount every few hours. I have removed the carbon bag on the filter. My fish still aren't eating, they are getting fuzz around their fins now and all look a little paler. Some of them have little white splotches still but are fading now.
I have a total of 6 left now, and I really would like to save them! Any advice would be greatly appreciated, I really have no clue what I'm doing.
Thank you so very much for you help in advance!