Talking Catfish Rescue

[bumfrog]

hi there

On friday I got a call from a friend to see if I wanted to rescue his humbug catfish. Quite a fine specimin at 4", but the clown loaches had taken a fancy to him and started to eat his scales. Needless to say the catfish wasn't too happy. He's got two very sore pink patches on either side of him. Luckily I had 3ft tank that has not long been set up an had 5 zebra danios cycling the tank. So, i've put him in there and I plan to let him recover before I move all the other community fish in there. I've added some salt to the water for him. Obviously he's hiding a lot and not doing a lot of moving, but I just wondered if anybody had any other tips on anything I could do for him?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

hi there

On friday I got a call from a friend to see if I wanted to rescue his humbug catfish. Quite a fine specimin at 4", but the clown loaches had taken a fancy to him and started to eat his scales. Needless to say the catfish wasn't too happy. He's got two very sore pink patches on either side of him. Luckily I had 3ft tank that has not long been set up an had 5 zebra danios cycling the tank. So, i've put him in there and I plan to let him recover before I move all the other community fish in there. I've added some salt to the water for him. Obviously he's hiding a lot and not doing a lot of moving, but I just wondered if anybody had any other tips on anything I could do for him?

ummm salt's really not good for most catfish

i'd do some big water changes to get it all out tbh

then just treat with melafix for a week, it's a mild antibacterial agent, should stop him getting any secondary infections and it promotes re-growth for injuries

 

[bumfrog]

cool, will have a look into getting hold of a some melafix.

It's strange about the salt thing as some people say yay, and some people say nay. It was only one teaspoon so shouldn't take that long to get it all changed out.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

salt is good for almost everyone except scalelss fish... this is usually things like catfish plecs and loaches.

i'm not familiar with that particular catfish so it may be alright.... but i thought i'd better warn you incase it isn't!

if it's a 3 ft tank it's gonna be 20-30g right? 1 teaspoon in that is nothing, to get my little 8g betta tank up to a salinity that's gonna cure anything i need more than that!

i'd still do a 50% water change to get it out anyway, won't hurt to make sure the water is spotless anyway

 

[bumfrog]

it's one of these -

http/www.planetcatfish.com/cotm/cotm.php?article_id=76

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah i sort of know what they are, just not a hell of a lot about they're requirements, i wouldn't trust them with salt.... just look at that pic, it doesn't look like it has scales to me, and that's when they're salt intollerant.

 

[bumfrog]

cool, thanks for your help. Just hope he can put himself back together

 

[Miss Wiggle]

sure he'll be fine, if he's survived this far then all you need to do is keep water conditions tip top so he doesn;t develop any secondary infections,like i said melafix will help