Bad Looking Channa

[always4lora]

Hi'Guy's ,

I've got 7 Channa Orientalis in a tank and one of them looks pretty beaten up, mostly on the top of the head and another one has a few marks on the head also the others seem to look ok. Now i'm not sure if its been in a scrap due to other starting to pair up or its part of a pair itself. I dont want to be changing the water on the tank alot as it can cause un explained deaths with snakeheads. I have a another tank that the waters changed frequently (presumably should help the wounds heal?) . Now my dilema is do i move it to the new tank preusming its not part of a pairing or leave it just incase it is?

As for the damage of the head its no longer brown it seems the outer skin has been mostly bitten.

Not sure what to do

 

[WILDER]

I would post in the right part of the forum as you will get more help over there.

Tank size in gallon or litres.
You also will need water stats.

 

[shelaghfishface]

copy and paste that in a PM to nelly or dave oddballs

 

[dave_oddballs]

they can and almost certainly will heal better in a 'quaranteen' tank with cleaner water. the only problem being is whether or not it would be accepted back into the group after being separated. my channa assam didn't so had to be in a different tank permanently, which isn't ideal.
a lot of people will just let them fight and go down the 'survival of the fittest' road, they say its natural. i disagree as although in the wild deaths from fights almost certainly occur regularly, but given the chance, in the wild, a fish can swim away never to be seen again, which isn't the case in the tank.
if you choose to separate it to give it time to heal then the only advice i could give is to do it as quick as possible. i know you can't control how fast a wound heals really but as soon as it seems fit enough again put it back in, to make the time apart as short as possible.
the only other alternative that may be easier is take out the injured one, put it into another tank to recover. then when it has recovered swap the fish over, so the others are removed from the main tank and the individual is placed back into the tank. then give it a couple of days to find its own place again and then re-introduce the others.
if this 1 individual keeps being the victim then maybe it will never be able to be a part of the group and maybe try re-homing it, give it a chance first though and see how it recovers and how they all get along afterwards.
all said they naturally will fight one and other, until you end up with a dominant pair. difficult to judge at a smaller size but i suppose it depends whether you want to risk deaths or re-home the weakest.

Dave

 

[england]

Depending on the severety of the wounds, mine have had some wounds in the past wilst the pair was forming and they recovered just fine from them, if wounds look furry and nasty<these guys heal very well indeed>then yes treat the guy to a private tank,but i highly dought once removed it will be excepted into the group again, it is possible a pair is forming,on the other hand might have just had a tiff with one of the others

 

[always4lora]

Wilder - i think it's the right part of the forum , the snakehead has its skin of its head! as for stat's i generally dont check on the channa, temp is around 25-26oC. #16##### for the tank size they're in a 4ft 40g tank.


shelaghfishface- i did message Nelly but i'm guessing he's busy with his move as he didn't get back to me.


Dave- thanks for the reply and nice ideas with the moving of the channa into the other tank then swap them around sounds like it should hopefully work. I'm going to move the fish accross tonight , it might just be weaker than the others as theres some large built ones in there.

Thanks for the help and advise guys




Just seen Nelly's post - it's just like white on the head, like the colour of a mouth ulcer looks like the skins bin taken off. i'll move it for precution and try re-introducing once healed a bit.

 

[england]

ah yea battle wounds hehe, does sound like nothing<much like a bit of skin peeling of your body?
mine have had that a fair few times,if you get open flesh wounds or fungus looking then id start to worry

 

[karigupi]

Another thing you can do, just to give the injured one a bit of space, is put up a temp divider in the tank they are all in, give the injured one a bit of quiet time to recover, but its still in sight of the others, so could be re-introduced a little easier?
Its something I had to do with one of my ornatipinnis, just for a few days & it worked well.

Melafix also seems to help, its amazing how quickly they can heal from some pretty nasty looking wounds.