Pictus Catfish just dropped dead

magakitty

magakitty

Normal people scare me
Apr 5, 2007
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Palm Springs
mysobrietyspace.ning.com
Okay - right off the bat I will tell you that we got some really bad advise on how long to wait to stock the tank. We bought a 20 gal and within 4 days had put our first 2 fish in it. Within a week we had 9 fish in it.

We treated the water, added Cycle and put on a 50 gal. bio-wheel filter. it seemed rather touch and go for a while, but none of the toxins ever tested out of safe/borderline range. Ammonia never went over .50 and nitrite never over .25. Nitrate is well within safe range. We have had the tank for only 3 weeks.

We started with 2 pink gouramis then added over the next week, 3 tiger barbs, 2 angels, and 2 pictus cats.

the first cat we added got a bellyache from being overfed right off the bat. hubby likes to see them feed. He recovered and acted fine, so we added the second one. one of the tiger barbs was head standing for a while, but he is fine now. The tank looked great today, and all of the fish were active and looking great so hubby decided to add two green barbs. (The barbs did not attack the cat, in case you were wondering)

Within minutes of adding the new fish, with a net, one of the cats dropped to the bottom of the tank upside down. he swam back up, dropped again, swam, dropped, twitched for a few seconds and died.

The other cat is hanging out beside the heater (tank temp in far corner from heater is 80 F.) the gouramis are alternating between hanging out just below the surface and chasing each other. The barbs are all very active and the angels are just hanging around like they always have.

tomorrow my hubby is going to do a 20-40% water change, add salt and more Cycle. He is going to replace the water with bottled water - our local water is cloudy out of the tank.

We are both very sad about the loss of our cat, and are worried sick about the rest of the fish.

does anyone have any idea why the cat just dropped dead? Also, what do we do to protect against further fish loss. We just get so attached to the little boogers that it broke our heart to lose Speedy. (yes we have named every one of them)

HELP PLEASE!?!?!?!?!

Kitty
 
First of all, salt is not good for scaleless fish/catfish. Your tank also may not have completely cycled. You need to quit adding fish until you are sure it has. I would recommend you get some BioSpira asap. Cycle is useless. Do you have live plants? What kind of substrate are you using?
What are your current water parameters?
 
like he said it may be the salt exposure combined with exposure to some ammonia (pictus cats are delicate).

pictus cats grow too large for a 20G and so do kissing gouramis. even tiger barbs should be kept in larger tanks, just so you know.
 
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We plan on buying an 80 gal very soon - we haven't added the salt yet and the water is good on ph, moderate on hardness, the nitrite level is at .25, and the nitrate level is under 20 but over 0, the ammonia is about .25
 
Hate to break it to you but those fish, excluding the tiger barbs, are going to all grow too big for your tank. In essence, your LFS had a really good time with you. Don't feel bad LFS do this kind of stuff to most beginning fish keepers who don't know any better. I it possible for you to take the fish back, especially since your tank isn't cycled yet? If you explain the situation to them I'm sure that they will take the fish back. Otherwise you are going to need a very big tank for those fish.

For now, I would say call the LFS up and see what they can do; in the meanwhile, you are going to need to do waterchanges to keep the ammonia and nitrite down. I'd lay off the salt. Why do you want to add salt anyway, is this some more nonsense the LFS was telling you? You do not need salt and a freshwater aquarium, that is why it is a freshwater aquarium and not a saltwater aquarium.

Some info on those fish:
http://www.aquahobby.com/gallery/e_tiger.php
http://www.aquahobby.com/gallery/e_kissing.php
http://www.aquahobby.com/gallery/e_angel.php or http://www.aquahobby.com/gallery/e_altum.php
http://www.aquahobby.com/gallery/e_pictus.php
 
It was suggested to me, in the chatroom, that we add live plants - all we have are plastic plants, and the substrate is 1/4' gravel.
 
Live plants help soak up ammonia and nitrites. Some low light plants could really help you. I'd only recommend the higher light plants if you're willing to dig deep to pay for enhanced lighting and a CO2 rig of some sort. Do you mean your substrate is 1/4 inch sized gravel or that it is 1/4 inch deep?
 
I wondered about the salt - we just bought it tonight because they told us that it was better for the fish - we haven't added it yet
 
A small amount of salt usually won't hurt EXCEPT in the case of scaleless fish like catfish. I'd limit using salt to using it to treat disease.

You have plenty of substrate for any kind of live plant. I'd give some low light ones a try.
 
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