sick upside down cat?

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

scalesojustice

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Jul 7, 2006
Messages
155
i was doing a pwc and the upside down cat came out from hiding. i noticed that around his head was red, like a patch of red, and he had a red streak, or line, running down through his body and fading as it reaches his tail.

i don't recall him having this coloration before, but maybe, i don't see him much, he usually hides in the plants or cave.

i've read that ich can also manifest in this way. could he have the ich? or does he have another sickness?

if so, i also have a day old batch of fry. how would treatment affect them? if i increase the temp for ich, would they be alright? the fry takes priority over the cat fish. maybe i can just isolate the catfish, but i don't have another tank.

TIA
 
What are your parameters? It doesn't sound like ich to me. Is he going to the surface or breathing heavily?
 
no, he isn't at the surface and doesn't appear to be breathing heavily. he's not acting out of the ordinary.
 
Did you test your parameters? The first thing I always do at any sign of illness is do a water change. It still doesn't sound like ich to me. It sounds similar to septcemia. Water parameters will help. Redness and bloody streaks usually occur in advanced stages of ich. You would have seen spots IMO.
 
yeah, i noticed while i was doing a 50% change. i do weekly changes between 20% and 50%, and now that i have some fry i'll be doing at least 20% twice a week. my parameters all look good. i'll keep an eye on him. thanks for the help!

EDIT:

i looked up septcemia, but it's not quite like that really. it's actually more faint. had i not seen him for a while during the change, i probably would have never noticed it as he was darting around.
 
If you have noticed the white spots turn up the heat. The heat will not hurt the fry as long as you add extra aeration or lower your water level to create more splash.
 
i think i will raise the temp just to be on the safe side. i see one thing that might be wrong with one fish, and i start freaking out thinking i notice things on the other fish. they are fine and are not acting weird. i will keep and eye on them. thanks for your help zagz! everyone should have to sign up for this forum before owning fish!
 
scalesojustice - just a couple of comments (1) I LOVE your profile name - its great ! (2) raising the temp won't hurt the fry - my fry are just fine and my temp is up for ick also, so don't worry (3) I know what you mean about the freak out ! This is the third time I've had ick and each time I've only seen one spot on one fish - talk about close inspections !!
 
joannde said:
This is the third time I've had ick and each time I've only seen one spot on one fish - talk about close inspections !!
You sure it's ick? I have a fancy-tailed black fin tetra that's consistantly getting white dots on his tail. Even under heat treatment, the spots would come and go, and none of the other fish ever show symptoms. I think it's actually related to a similar problem with split tail goldfish, and not ick. The mutant strains bred for tail length are just more prone to local infections on thier tails.
 
just wanted to say, thanks for the help everyone. the upside down cat looks fine now. no red patches or streaks and he is acting normal. i'll keep an eye on him for a while thought. thanks again!
 
did that happen after you raised the temp ? if so I would definitely suspect ick and leave the temp up for 3 weeks or so.
 
Back
Top Bottom