Three days ago I did a "rearrangement", and water change with my tanks. It was water change day in the 55gl, and I was getting the 135 prepped for fish. I took out 80% of the decorations (plants, some rocks, etc) of the 55 and put them in the 135, then I took the 55's filter and put it on the 135. I did all this after doing a 40% water change on the 55. Things were lovely and fine that entire day, checked the WP that night, and they were perfect. Then the next afternoon I noticed that the Lace Cat was starting to look a bit fuzzy around a couple of fins. So I dosed the tank with Binox and things were looking much better for two days.

Then today I get home from work and my Lace Cat looks like this!





I immediately flipped the F out, and checked my water parameters again. The ammonia and the nitrate were friggin ASTRONOMICAL! The only thing I can think that caused it were my taking the canister filter off, and replacing it with a HOB filter, and dumping Binox in. I did an 80% water change and he seems to be doing better, but with how bad his injuries are - I'm not so sure he'll survive. I then decided that it would be a fantastic idea if hubby learned to take water readings and do water changes since he's home all day!

Seriously, this fish is so gnarly lookin right now. He's got bald spots behind both pectoral fins, one behind his dorsal fin, his anal fin as holes all the way through it, and his tail is split right up to his body. His tail and his dorsal fin have bloody spots and I'm wondering if I should put him down, or see if he can tough it out. He's at least acting normal now, his breathing has slowed, he's not gasping at the surface, but he looks so horribly pathetic and in pain.

The weird thing is, the Oscar, and the EB Jack Dempsey were acting like nothing was wrong. The ammonia level was at 2.0 and the nitrate was at 40. WTF?! pH was still 7.4 and nitrite was 0. I honestly don't know how those fish survived without even a "scratch". Numbers like that should have nuked the entire tank! I checked the WP in the 135 and they're 0's across the board with a pH of 7.2. I'm considering moving the Oscar and the JD now a week ahead of schedule so that the Lace Cat will be left alone to hopefully heal. My hubby said I should just put the catfish in the 135, but I think netting and bagging him will add a sh*t-ton more stress to him and it'd push him over the edge.

So after this small sob story and glimpse into sucky fish keeping - anyone have any suggestions or advice? Because honestly I've NEVER had to deal with something like this. I'm a religious freak about my WP and doing water changes; so this really blows me away as to how in the hell this happened.

changing the pump with the new one breaks the cycle
unless you use the media from the old filter to the new filter


that is the most practical things to do in a situation like this. catfish are usually
sturdy and can survive an injury like that. just keep the water under check and and
he will be fine.

Same with turning off a filter for some hours.
Beneficial bacteria will die and cause a massive ammonia spike when they are flushed into the tank, when the filter is turned back on.

PAUL wrote:


I figured. The HOB filter I put on had been cycled, but it was on a 10gl and wasn't nearly enough to handle the 55. It's rated for a 75gl, but just wasn't colonized enough.

nevertheless, you can cope up with the present situation. do daily water change
and feed sparingly to lessen the bioloads.

i would be very surprised if the ammonia/nitrates could rise so sharply from morning to night. got me a bit puzzled. how many fish do you have in there/size? as Paul said you should be able to manage things by water changes and testing regularly but if the readings changed so sharply it got me wondering. i would certainly use prime to neutralize some of the ammonia when you do your water change. are you certain its ammonia that caused the problem and not chlorine from tap water??? this would also explain the filter bio braking down? I wonder also if the ammonia would react so quickly on the cat. they are very strong fish and would cope with poor water better than most. I would check your water conditioner date and dosage was correct. I could be wrong of cause but that's the good thing with forums, you get a wide view as to what the problem could be.

Catfish are scaleless so in many cases they suffer before any other fish. From what I can see by the photographs, it does rather look like a fungal infection, is the skin actually missing?

marcus - there are 3 fish in the tank waiting on the 135. A 6" Oscar, 3" EBJD, and this catfish (who's been in there for just over a week now). I haven't been feeding them since I put Binox in the tank. So they haven't eaten in like 3 days. I'm positive that it was ammonia and not chlorine. I use Big Al's water conditioner, it's like Stress Coat and I couldn't find any expiration date on it. I bought it a couple of months ago, and I use the same thing in all 3 of my tanks. Water readings this morning are still registering nitrate and ammonia at 2 and 0.25. I'm gonna do a 50% water change after this, and I'll take WP readings when I get off work tonight.

OFL - Yup skin is missing in dime sized patches under his dorsal and pectoral fins. It doesn't look fungal to me, just fuzzy because his skin is coming off. I think his gills are burned to hell because he keeps surfacing and has some seriously rapid gill movement. The Oscar and JD still appear kosher. I was thinking of putting Pimafix in the tank after I do my water change just to be prepared should he get fungus.

I'm not convinced that your ammonia caused this problem. 2.0 is high, but it's not high enough to cause this type of damage in such a short time period. When I kept Clown Loach I had ammonia spikes on occasions and I never had any problems like you are getting. Can you see the gills? See if they have changed color from being bright red at all?

Also, how high is your temperature. Ammonia is more toxic in alkaline water, in other words the higher the pH & the warmer the water, the more toxic the ammonia. So you might be advised to reduce the temperature of the water if it is very high. Obviously lowering your pH isn't quite as easy, you could try wood, but it won't happen overnight

The temp is at 78ºF and is a pretty constant temp. Although it was 82º when I came home last night, but my house felt like a friggin oven because hubby had the thermostat set so high. And from the tiny amount that I can see, his gills don't look red. But that's not saying much because honestly, you really can't see but a sliver of his gills.

If it wasn't the ammonia spike, then I don't know wth would have caused this. This is a well established, well maintained tank other than this snafu. Maybe the catfish came in with something and the stress of being bagged and moved AGAIN caused him to break out. IDK

So I guess I'll dose the tank with Pimafix, but before I do that - I think I'm gonna move the Oscar and the dainty little Electric Blue JD into the 135. It's a week ahead of schedule, but they seem to be a couple of tanks and they're still small enough that I think the tank can handle it. Input?

You say that none of the other fish are behaving abnormally? I could be wrong but I would have thought if the ammonia was high enough to cause this kind of damage to one fish, the other fish will be showing signs of ammonia poisoning as well, if not poisoning, they would be behaving slightly different

OFL wrote:


I would have thought the same. So that's why I'm thinking it must be something that the catfish had to begin with and it broke out after the stress of moving and going through a mini-cycle from that stupid filter.