My Lima shovelnose catfish acting odd

[MetalHeadX343]

I need to know why my catfish is so upset. I'm new to monster fish I normally own small tropical fish that require low maintenance. I have only owned him for about a week now so I don't know how they normally act. I just purchased 20 small goldfish for him to eat today. I'm trying to ween him off live fish but he won't touch anything I throw in there yet. I tested my water for everything imaginable and the only thing that was off was the ammonia level. The ammonia level was between stress and harmful. As far as I am aware goldfish admit a high level of ammonia. He hasn't tried to eat any of them yet, however he has investigated them and has had them right in front on his mouth. The reason why I believe he's acting odd is because he's swimming up and down very fast in the back of the tank like he's trying to escape and not doing his hunting position like normal. I recently discovered that my air pump wasn't working. The output that my tubes were on were clogged I switched them so now my air stone works (I did this about 30 min ago). Does anybody have any advice on weening him away from live fish and/or what the problem might be... Please help

 

[HUKIT]

Welcome to the site.

First based on your desription of ammonia levels that would certainly explain his behavior followed by the fact he's a new addition and the combination of stress from poor water conditions and moving is very hard on the fish.

First things first what are the actual water parameters, what size is the tank/filtration, and what other tankmates besides the filthy gold fish? Answer these questions to start before any further help can be offered.

 

[MetalHeadX343]

Thanks for helping

I believe I fixed the problem after I got my air pump to start working again. I have one of those large air stones and a small one and I've read online that it might push the ammonia out and it did. Two goldfish died this morning , I'm pretty sure that's fine considering they came from a tank with about 500 of em. My filtration system is a topfin60 and I have about a 45 gallon tank. Btw when you said parameter did you mean perimeter? If not please explain what you mean. Oh yea my catfish is doing better and not freaking out anymore. I do need to change my filter cause it hasn't been changed in forever and my heater crapped out on me There's 18 1-2 inch goldfish in there and a pleco and 10 of those little tiny snails they were all purchased yesterday. My catfish still won't eat and I think that's because they can't fit in his mouth, i'm not quite sure. Oh yea this might help you a little bit. I tried to feed him a Canadian nightcrawler that I cut an inch off of two days ago. He refused to eat it the first day but yesterday I had noticed it disappeared and I don't know if the goldfish ate it or if he did. I don't know if that could make him sick..

 

[HUKIT]

A air pump working or not will have no effect on the water condtions. Without the current water parameters we can't really give any advice. How long has the tank been set up?

 

[MetalHeadX343]

Well something made the ammonia level go away it's probably coincidental. I just did an ammonia test this morning and it was in the safe zone.

 

[HUKIT]

I just did an ammonia test this morning and it was in the safe zone.

What is the safe zone? A cycled aquarium should have zero ammonia/nitrites and lower levels of nitrate below 40ppm.

 

[librarygirl]

There really is no safe zone when it comes to ammonia. Paramaters means your water test results. Do you have a test kit? What kind (liquid is better, strips are very innaccurate)? And if you don't have a test kit you need one; that indicator in your tank is not reliable in and of itself. If you can test for ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates and post the results here that would help.

Here's an article you should read and follow: I just learned about cycling but I already have fish. What now?! You'll need to start doing daily water changes and use a good dechlorinator like Prime.

A much better option would be to return the fish if you still can, and cycle your tank without the fish and in the meantime research better options for your tank.

 

[MetalHeadX343]

Ammonia 0 - Nitrate (NO+3) 0 - Nitrite (NO-2) 0 - Total hardness Soft 75 - Total Chlorine 0 - Total Alkalinity between 120 and 180 which is ideal - Ph level is between 6.8 and 7.2 which is neutral.

 

[HUKIT]

Ammonia 0 - Nitrate (NO+3) 0 - Nitrite (NO-2) 0 - Total hardness Soft 75 - Total Chlorine 0 - Total Alkalinity between 120 and 180 which is ideal - Ph level is between 6.8 and 7.2 which is neutral.

There is way your not showing nitrates when you were just at higher level of ammonia, so something is wrong with your results...either a testing error or faulty kit.

 

[MetalHeadX343]

You were right, the nitrate is at 20

 

[MetalHeadX343]

There really is no safe zone when it comes to ammonia. Paramaters means your water test results. Do you have a test kit? What kind (liquid is better, strips are very innaccurate)? And if you don't have a test kit you need one; that indicator in your tank is not reliable in and of itself. If you can test for ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates and post the results here that would help.

Here's an article you should read and follow: I just learned about cycling but I already have fish. What now?! You'll need to start doing daily water changes and use a good dechlorinator like Prime.

A much better option would be to return the fish if you still can, and cycle your tank without the fish and in the meantime research better options for your tank.

I've had my aquarium for five years. there's plenty of bacteria developed on the filter wheel and my test strips are pretty accurate. I shut down my aquarium because one of my friends thought it would be cool if I had a puffer fish and it killed my dragons, bala shark, plecos, rainbow sharks, and everthing else. So I brought it back to life and cleaned the crap out of everything, replaced the gravel and filled it with water and treated it for a month, and I tested the water every 3 days.

 

[MetalHeadX343]

Ok well after I got my air stones working my catfish is very happy he's been in his hunting position almost all day and he finally ate a big goldfish....