Dead Glass Catfish :(

[hoyfoys]

Hi,

I've had my fish nearly 3 weeks after completing a fishless cycle.

I did a routine 25-30% water change on Saturday and have been treating for White Spot since then too.

Today I came home from work to find 3 dead glass catfish (2 were nothing more than a white torsos). I can see 2 more so there is 1 either dead or hiding. They have generally come out at night so it's been hard to keep an eye on them but the live 1 I saw today could possibly have fin rot. Certainly the dead ones seemed to be less fins that I'd expect but then I did see the shrimps nibbling at them.

I have 2 pearl gouramis, 2 dwarf gouramis, 2 blue rams (I'd seen white spots on them until yesterday, hence the treatment), 6 odessa barbs and now 2/3 glass catfish. I also have 12 Amano Shrimps.

I did notice that a dwarf and pearl gourami seemed a little spooks, dashing around and then hiding behind plants, but maybe that was due to me putting my arm in to remove the dead cats?

pH 8
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 30

The Nitrate seems to have risen a little in the past few days but other than that everything looks ok to me.

What do you think caused this? Could it have been fin rot and if so should I treat it as well as the white spot, I'll have to do another white spot treatment as the spots are only just going.

Any help appreciate.

Thanks.

 

[challdog]

sorry for your loss mate

could be anything really...
i thought glass catfish preferred lower PH, but that wouldn't kill them
depending on your tank size, it could be overpopulated...?

without more info we can't really say,
but it might be an infection, sometimes they come back after being "cured"

 

[hoyfoys]

Thanks for the reply.

I've just been searching online and some people are saying that Ich/White Spot medicine can harm Glass Catfish. Could this be the reason?

The tank size is 110L so I think it shouldn't be overpopulated (depending on what guide you use!), especially as they still aren't full grown.

I didn't see any white spots on the glass cats themselves.

I think if the others die I will either not replace them or will get a different fish. If the others survive I guess I'll have to make their numbers up to 6 again?

 

[Caprichoso]

How big your tank? You may want to increase the amount of water change to 50% since you are still in a new set up and you may have had a slight ammonia increase. The increased volume of fish waste was probably what did it. I'm assuming you added all those fish at once? If yes, your bacteria population may not have been able to deal with the sudden added bio-load. Another thing is that glass catfish are much more delicate and are more prone to getting bacterial infections. I wouldn't advise them in a brand new tank unless you are very careful about testing the water and doing big water changes. That being said, you already have them so you have to make the best of it now. You now have the issue with there not being enough glass cats. They need to be in large groups(6 minimum) or they fail to thrive. But, I don't recommend getting any more until this is sorted out. So I would recommend increasing the temperature slowly by 2 degrees(unless your temp is on the high end already?) and doing a water change of 50%. Follow this by another one the next day. If you wish to continue with the meds, it's up to you but after the meds are done, do the water changes after or whatever it tells you on the bottle. I personally have only had ich in my tank once years ago and all I did was do water changes and raise the temp. You have to decide for yourself what is best for your fish. For the future, I would be careful what meds you use as certain fish plus shrimp, snails and frogs cannot tolerate it. You may want to set up a small qt tank for these instances.

Best of luck and sorry about your glass cats

 

[hoyfoys]

Hi Caprichoso,

It's 110L.

I added the dwarf gouramis and shrimps later.

I've been doing tests every day and certainly things seemed ok. I thought I had a rise to about 0.2 Ammonia but this turned out to the the test.

I can't really increase the temperature, I don't think, as it's already a little higher than my odessa barbs would like.

I feel I should finish this course of meds and possibly do another to make sure the Ich has gone. If the cats die I will get something easier, if anything at all.

Thanks

 

[hoyfoys]

The others are now dead. The last was going white so I had to put him down

Sorry catfish

 

[Caprichoso]

Sorry

 

[Randomitity]

I thought they were a schooling type of fish as well as they don't do well with rougher fish.