Jesus! What did the catfish eat!
More tank pics, updated
- Thread starter FINWIN
- Start date
What you are looking at is the elusive gulper syno hybrid. It can increase its body mass by 200% during feedings.
I'm thinking he may have gotten a loose nightcrawler or every extra pellet in the sand. He's always normal after a couple of days.
The debate is over about whether ick is transported or always exists in my mind.
I'm at my wits end with this hypersensitive Chocolate Cichlid of mine (Bobo). Recently he sloughed off sheets of slime coat after a water change but it turned out to be nothing. Or maybe not! The other day I thought I saw two tiny spots on his side. A closer look showed air bubbles. Okay, no biggie. But today? I saw him scrape against his house. Hmm. Then he did the "body twist" thing a couple of times. So I'm like _$*%@. I look again under full daylight spectrum. Sure enough, I see the tiny beginnings of what appears to be another round of ick. 2 to 5 mini sized dots.
So I hit it with the salt right away. None of the other fish are affected right now and I want to keep it that way. I went for 4% salinity last time and did it again today. Of course all the other fish were curious and stared at it. Bobo ate some salt (why not?) The last time Boss ate salt.
Getting fed up with a fish that's so touchy anything sends him into rounds of ich...if it weren't for that he'd be perfectly healthy. I had a backburner long term plan of maybe putting the Chocolate and my BP Tango along with some dithers in a separate tank. That can't happen just yet. It's also messed up my acclimation plans for the growouts in QT...I can't acclimate them to water now from a tank I'm treating for ick.
Long term, Bobo may have to go. I'd hate to do it but this round robin is getting old.
I'm at my wits end with this hypersensitive Chocolate Cichlid of mine (Bobo). Recently he sloughed off sheets of slime coat after a water change but it turned out to be nothing. Or maybe not! The other day I thought I saw two tiny spots on his side. A closer look showed air bubbles. Okay, no biggie. But today? I saw him scrape against his house. Hmm. Then he did the "body twist" thing a couple of times. So I'm like _$*%@. I look again under full daylight spectrum. Sure enough, I see the tiny beginnings of what appears to be another round of ick. 2 to 5 mini sized dots.
So I hit it with the salt right away. None of the other fish are affected right now and I want to keep it that way. I went for 4% salinity last time and did it again today. Of course all the other fish were curious and stared at it. Bobo ate some salt (why not?) The last time Boss ate salt.
Getting fed up with a fish that's so touchy anything sends him into rounds of ich...if it weren't for that he'd be perfectly healthy. I had a backburner long term plan of maybe putting the Chocolate and my BP Tango along with some dithers in a separate tank. That can't happen just yet. It's also messed up my acclimation plans for the growouts in QT...I can't acclimate them to water now from a tank I'm treating for ick.
Long term, Bobo may have to go. I'd hate to do it but this round robin is getting old.
Quick update to consolidate some postings on other threads.
Bobo the chocolate will be a solo fish. I'm setting up a temporary backup tank for him. Despite his healthy/beefy appearance he seems to have a weak immune system that makes him prone to stress related disease. Just low tolerance for anything.
The situation with Patch and her egg tube is excellent. The redness, crust and swelling is gone. She's nearly retracted it and is swimming about/exploring normally. One more treatment of epsom and Sulfaplex as a precaution. In fact it cleared up in one day.
MTS sucks when it isn't your plan. When I got back in the hobby I wanted one main tank and one or two QT. Now I'm ending up with a bundle of separate fish that can't get along or are sickly. We have:
Patch, the #1 butt kicker. Forget putting her with anyone. Her track record is every other parrot, including a juvie Brick.
Kong, who holds the #2 spot. She also bounced a young Brick around and terrorized a young Boss. Ditto with being a loner.
Tango, a nervous and kooky parrot. He and Boss tangled, so no go. Patch beat his ass, too. So, solo.
And now we have Bobo, who has almost no tolerance for stress, even minimal stress. There you go.
Maybe at least I'll see more of his color morphs from the past. For the most part he stays mud brown with dark pink stripes right now.
Bobo the chocolate will be a solo fish. I'm setting up a temporary backup tank for him. Despite his healthy/beefy appearance he seems to have a weak immune system that makes him prone to stress related disease. Just low tolerance for anything.
The situation with Patch and her egg tube is excellent. The redness, crust and swelling is gone. She's nearly retracted it and is swimming about/exploring normally. One more treatment of epsom and Sulfaplex as a precaution. In fact it cleared up in one day.
MTS sucks when it isn't your plan. When I got back in the hobby I wanted one main tank and one or two QT. Now I'm ending up with a bundle of separate fish that can't get along or are sickly. We have:
Patch, the #1 butt kicker. Forget putting her with anyone. Her track record is every other parrot, including a juvie Brick.
Kong, who holds the #2 spot. She also bounced a young Brick around and terrorized a young Boss. Ditto with being a loner.
Tango, a nervous and kooky parrot. He and Boss tangled, so no go. Patch beat his ass, too. So, solo.
And now we have Bobo, who has almost no tolerance for stress, even minimal stress. There you go.
Maybe at least I'll see more of his color morphs from the past. For the most part he stays mud brown with dark pink stripes right now.
That's great that everything is fixed up! Sorry for so many tanks. Is there going to be replacement fish coming soon?
Very happy Patch is her sassy self. When she flicks her trailers/top fin that's when you know she's back. Her tube is nearly retracted now. Kong is still transitioning from her piebald look. Now she's the same color as Patch but with an orange nose!
The plan for Bobo is to get him 'space' away from the Oscar and Parrot. I've started to set up the temporary tank. I swiped both backgrounds I originally purchased for Patch and Kong's tank upgrades (now on indefinite hold). I made a 'wrap around' background and spliced together two similar graphics. The tank came with a full hood holding led lights. They are extremely bright, so I will use some floating lily pads at the surface. Bobo will have one large plant and a log hide.
The QT crew is doing well. The growth of both acaras and the severum just blows my mind. The HRP snatches his food then speeds back into his log. These fish eat like nothing I've seen except Brick. They literally clean the sand of food debris.
I would like to re-introduce Bobo WITH all the new fish together. It may or may not work but I have to try. The other tank will be on standby if it goes south. This whole situation became a mess when Felix jumped the tank one time too many. That was Bobo's running buddy and they bonded, schooling together and sharing the same turf. The acara would even fend off the BP Boss at times.
Pepper schools /rests with the chocolate, but he's too small to tip the scales. So once again Bobo became the target fish of the dominant pair. When Chip the severum was alive he took pressure off the chocolate as well. The two of them would go back and forth too.
Then Bobo had a huge growth spurt and tried testing the Oscar. It came to a head when he popped the O and nipped his tail. That started a war. Brick tolerated him up to that point but Bobo blew it. Since then he's chased, pressured or run in laps around the tank. It's not constant but always there leading to problems. And the oscar has learned to intimidate without actually doing anything, like crowding Bobo in a corner or blocking his house with his body. Pepper did try to interfere a bit (cute!) but obviously too small to be effective.
Right now Bobo is okay, all things considered (no spots). New water and salt tomorrow for everybody.
Will post a couple of early pics of Bob's new setup.
Unbelievable.
So after all my prep to get Bobo a temporary "safe house" guess what's happening now? He's hanging out with Brick and Boss. WHUT. Not that they're super buddies or anything, but they seem to be okay all of a sudden with him being around their area for brief visits. And now Bobo's suddenly bold, going over to the other side just forcing his way in (it don't cut any ice with the parrot). I have no idea if anything happened or what happened, but seriously wtf. I should add that there seems to be less aggression when I'm not in the room. I don't get that either.
In smaller news, Brick had one helluva ugly chin pimple the past two days. Thing looked like a big red cauliflower...maybe that's why he was so cranky. With the salt though, it shrunk a lot today. I did see him banging it against the glass, so it must have worked. Anyway, I'm keeping the backup tank on standby in case this is all some fever dream or hallucination. You can sign me up for a padded room, I'm done.
For your amusement, here's the backup tank. It has a nice full led hood but the light is 1,000 percent too bright. I've got a dimmer/timer ordered for it, and also for Tango's tank. Tango has an older Nicrew led strip with a lot of screwball colors you can't adjust or dim, so getting a dimmer is cheaper (for now) than getting a whole new fixture. The tank lid has a feeder flap.
So after all my prep to get Bobo a temporary "safe house" guess what's happening now? He's hanging out with Brick and Boss. WHUT. Not that they're super buddies or anything, but they seem to be okay all of a sudden with him being around their area for brief visits. And now Bobo's suddenly bold, going over to the other side just forcing his way in (it don't cut any ice with the parrot). I have no idea if anything happened or what happened, but seriously wtf. I should add that there seems to be less aggression when I'm not in the room. I don't get that either.
In smaller news, Brick had one helluva ugly chin pimple the past two days. Thing looked like a big red cauliflower...maybe that's why he was so cranky. With the salt though, it shrunk a lot today. I did see him banging it against the glass, so it must have worked. Anyway, I'm keeping the backup tank on standby in case this is all some fever dream or hallucination. You can sign me up for a padded room, I'm done.
For your amusement, here's the backup tank. It has a nice full led hood but the light is 1,000 percent too bright. I've got a dimmer/timer ordered for it, and also for Tango's tank. Tango has an older Nicrew led strip with a lot of screwball colors you can't adjust or dim, so getting a dimmer is cheaper (for now) than getting a whole new fixture. The tank lid has a feeder flap.
