Pictus Cat missing skin

[Predator]

I posted this in another place and it got held. I think I put it in the wrong place. If you mods find it, you can delete it. Thanks and I apologize.

Anyway, here goes… Its been awhile since I have been on here. Plenty has changed. One thing that hasn't is my love for my fish friends. I have a 100 G freshwater that has been stable for going on 4 years thanks to the help I got here. I haven't lost a fish until now. In the last 2 months I have lost a clown fish, 2 plecos that were about 11" long and now my spotted cat has a small patch of skin missing on his side. It has come up missing before but it healed on its own and I chalked it up to a possible scuffle with another fish. Well, now it has happened again. It was not like this yesterday. My first thought was scraping on the lava rocks in the tank. Where you see "spot" in the picture below is where he stays unless all the lights in the room are off. See pics below. My question is, what can I do? I know this must be painful for him and while he is a trooper of a fish, he won't take this abuse forever.
Here are his current tank mates:

5 Large Jelly Bean Parrots
3 Medium Clown Loaches
1 Red Fin Shark
2 Plecos about 6-7 inches in length
2 Albino Cory Cats
1 plain algae eater (kind of silver with the dark stripe down its sides) this fish has actually changed to an albino by itself. It turned from its normal colors to all yellow. Weird.

http://www.f-5performance.com/ebay/spot1.jpg

http://www.f-5performance.com/ebay/spot2.jpg

[AngelMom]

Any chance he got chewed on by one of the algae eaters or plecos? Short of that, what are the water test numbers fro ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH (and any others you have) and what is your regular maintenance routine (how often,, how much, etc)?

[Predator]

The plecos are a possibility. I can't see why he would just sit there and let it happen though. lol.

How often do you all feed your fish? I feed the population about 1 time every two days as was advised by my LFS. I feed them flake food, algea tabs and shrimp pellets. They do not however, appear to be growing. Could I be under feeding? All of my smaller fish have gone AWOL over the years. Zebras, cherry barbs and other smaller fish.

I will have to run a new set of tests on the water tonight. I tested it about a week ago and nothing stood out so I did not write them down.

[AngelMom]

The pictus and red tails are your explanation for the smaller fishes disappearances ... they were probably eaten while sleeping.

If you have some MelaFix, I'd suggest trying that first to see if the cat starts to heal ... if there's no improvement in a day or so, you might need to move him to a quarantine tank a treat with meds.

[oscarbartoni]

My thought is the plecos, the algae eater (the most likely one) or the shark (which would take from a wound and continue. I would take the lava rock out to help keep this from getting worse since he/she seems to like to rest near it.Another thing to watch out for is if a fish hides behind a heater, it will burn them but they would rather be burned instead of chewed on by other fish. Please send in your water quality numbers. also let us know what your aquarium maintenance is(water changes, frequencies, amount each time etc). I would also feed them a bit more so that they are not so hungry as to try eating the other fish. There is some truth to not overfeeding but that only goes so far.I would feed 5 or 6 times a week instead of every other day. I give my fish a day or two a week a fast and they are healthy and breeding.

[Predator]

Hello all. Well, due to being layed off and having other problems to boot, I have delayed dealing with this issue so long that I have lost more fish. I took new readings today. The numbers that follow are before and after a 40% water change.

Before:
PH Low - 7.0
Nitrate - 160+
PH High - 7.4
Nitrite - 0PPM
Ammonia 0PPM

I recognize the Nitrate as being way too high so I do a 40% water change because it has been an overly long time since the last one. I reran the nitrate test and its still 160+. Off the chart.

What can I do?

[AngelMom]

Testing right after a water change doesn't give "true" results ... try and test again after 6-8 hours to give the water time to "settle".

With high nitrates like that though, it's been my experience that you'll need to do a 30% water change 2 or 3 times per week until it drops below 40ppm to avoid future problems. Doing too many water changes, or changing too much water can also shock the fish and create problems there.

[Predator]

I will check it again this evening. If its still high I will do another change day after tomorrow. I changed the filter media and carbon today as well.

[Predator]

Ok, I checked the readings again this morning. Still off the chart. I did another 50% change and added 10 tsp of Nitraban. So far its still off the charts but I will check it again tomorrow. It will be a few days before I do another change. The water got cloudy on me today and I suspect that from changing it too frequently.

One more thing, I thought my test kit might have "gone bad" on me so I tested some tap water. Kit appears to be working. 0 nitrates in tap water.

Also, I have another 30 gallon tank and I checked it today, also off the chart. I did a 50% change on it today. Will wait a few days and do another check.

The fish do seem to be out and about more now since I changed the water. They used to just hide and not swim much; thats not the case any longer.

Let me know if any of this is bad.

[AngelMom]

Unless you can exactly match the temperature, pH and hardness of the tank water, anything over 30% is a no-no. Changing any of those parameters too rapidly can stress the fish out significantly.

[Predator]

The temp I am able to match but the rest I cannot so I will cut back to 25%. Thank you, I did not know that.

[Predator]

One more question. What is an acceptable level of Nitrates? Should it be 0?

[AngelMom]

As long as you are under 60 ppm, preferably under 40 ppm (though we all shoot for 20 ppm or less) the fish will be fine. There is some evidence that even 80 ppm for an extended period of time can cause damage and plenty of proof that 160 ppm and above definitely causes damage. Hopefully that wasn't more than you were looking for. ;)

[Predator]

Cool, that is exactly what I needed to know. I miss my clown fish, I lost all 4 of them through this little fiasco. Them and one large pleco. I love my fish but they might need more "TLC" than I can provide.

[Predator]

Another thing. The test kit I have has two chemicals that I have to drop into a vial of water and then let sit for 5 minutes. The water turns a color. The 20,40,60, 80 and 160 colors are very close shades of red. Is there a better system to test with? One that is more easily read? Like a digital readout?

[Predator]

Nevermind, I just found a whole bunch of options at Dr's Fosters and Smith. Cool. Any of these you would particularly recommend for accurately testing nitrates?

This is what I am using now. Only mine has more little bottles and vials.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+4345+17338+4454&pcatid=4454

[AngelMom]

I don't know if there are digital probes for nitrate ... and they tend to be very expensive so I don't usually pay them much mind. :rolleyes:

I've tried a number of liquid test kits and find the Red Sea kits the easiest to read in terms of being able to tell one color from the next. The lower end of that kit is more blue while the higher end is redish.