Emergency Maybe? Pictus Cat

[mtweldon]

I have had a pictus catfish for about 3-4 months in my tropical fish tank with no problems, I just noticed this morning his belly is freggin huge! He is now acting quite weird and Im not sure what the problem is. I try to catch him and he runs away like normal so no idea what the deal is. I might try to get a picture to show, it really looks like his/her belly could blow.

 

[WILDER]

Sounds like a bacterial infection, what do you feed him, is he laying to one side and laboured breathing, check the anus to see if its enlarged or red and inflamed, also what does it look like when he goes to the toilet.
Try some shelled peas on him, cook frozen peas for a few minutes, let cook down, pop out of shell and mush between fingers and add to the tank, also frozen daphnia is good to help the fish digest it food.

 

[mtweldon]

Sounds like a bacterial infection, what do you feed him, is he laying to one side and laboured breathing, check the anus to see if its enlarged or red and inflamed, also what does it look like when he goes to the toilet.
Try some shelled peas on him, cook frozen peas for a few minutes, let cook down, pop out of shell and mush between fingers and add to the tank, also frozen daphnia is good to help the fish digest it food.

Feed flakes / blood worms
No hes not laying there at all, hes swimming back and forth / swimming verticle and running his belly against one of the back glass walls of the tank, will look for redness tho just incase.

 

[WILDER]

I'm afraid bad diet he's constipated to many high protein foods, they need other frozen foods and veg in the diet, get the peas in fast.

http/www.bobstropicalfish.com/constipation.html

 

[mtweldon]

Oh my gosh.. I just spent like 15 minutes trying to fix my mistake I was trying to catch him to inspect him a little closer and both of his fins got caught in the mesh net. One finally got loose on its own but the other I had to cut a hole in the net to get his other fin out, he has mesh netting on his fin now, but he seems to be doing ok. So frozen peas you say.. Really?

 

[WILDER]

Yes very good for constipation and flushing the fish through it a fish laxative the peas method.

 

[mtweldon]

Yes very good for constipation and flushing the fish through it a fish laxative the peas method.

oki, will give that a try, I read that link you gave me. Thanks. Looks like hes going to have that mesh netting on him for a while, is there anything I can do about that? Will it hurt him?

 

[WILDER]

Sorry, wants removing as if it beds into the skin it will cause an infection like septicemia, what a night for you.

 

[Nina]

One of our pims decided to take the net with him. If you have already stressed him out alot already then leave him for tonight as he may work it off by himself (ours took a few days to do so). If not you will need to remove it.

When you try to catch him from now on try and use either a glass bowl/jug or a plastic strainer that you would use to drain food (like pasta) that way his fins will not get caught. However, be prepared from lots of splashing and noise from him when you do catch him.

 

[mtweldon]

Yeah am going to wait a day or two and hopefully he will work it off himself. I dropped in a pea split in half, came back an hour and later and half of the pea is gone and it looks like his belly is smaller, so thats some good news. Catfish do make some interesting noises.. chirps it sounds like if they ever get out of the water. Thanks for all the quick replies.