Sucker Mouth Catfish And Tetra Issues

Hi KB 

Sorry your first post has to be because of something bad 

Firstly, can I ask what the catfish is. It covers a number of types of fish including corydoras and plecs. Knowing which you have will help.

KH next; despite what the strip instructions may say, there is not good or bad level of KH or GH unlike ammonia and nitrite. It depends on what the water is like coming out of your tap. GH is general hardness, and is a measure of the amount of calcium and magnesium in the water. This is what we are talking about when we say 'the kettle is always furring up because the water is so hard'. This is only 'bad' if you are trying to keep soft water fish (eg most tetras, south American cichlids) in hard water or hard water fish (livebearers, Rift Lake cichlids) in soft water.
KH is linked to hardness, and is a measure of the amount of carbonate in the water. This is what is called a buffer, that is it stops the pH of the water changing. If there low KH it can get used up and the pH drops. If the KH is high, the pH will be very stable and almost impossible to alter. The only not-good KH is one that is so low it is below 3 German degrees because of the possible impact on pH. So ignore what the strips say about 10 being 'slightly high'. It just means your pH won't crash. (Mine is 3 and I have had a pH crash!)

Now to the neons.
How long have you had them, and have you got any new fish in the last month?
Are they showing any other symptoms besides the finrot and the lump on one of them, eg bleached looking red area, blue stripe looking yellowish?
The best thing initially until we have a diagnosis is more water changes than usual, say 30% every other day for a couple of weeks. This will dilute any ammonia or nitrite that might be there despite the strip readings.

I use API liquid testers, you can buy them as a master set with ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and both pH and high range pH (though you only need one of them depending on the value of your pH). On-line is cheaper than a real shop but slower getting hold of it. There are other makes as well, maybe go shopping and see what you can find. Whichever make you buy, one of the bottles of nitrate tester will need to be shaken very well, the instructions will say which one. Failing to shake it till your arm falls off is the most common cause of inaccurate nitrate results 




So in summary -
Ignore what the strips say about your KH
Have a close look at your neons for anything else wrong
Do more water changes, and if you need to dose med do it afterwards. Otherwise add enough med to treat the volume of new water.
Tell us what the catfish is, please.

Hi. Sorry to hear you're having troubles. Who said fishkeeping was a relaxing hobby?!?

When you emptied the original tank to repair it, did you keep these original filter going in the temporary tank?

I'm wondering if your filter bacteria died, or the bacterial colonies dwindled to the point of no longer coping with the bio-load.

FWIW I use the API Master water testing kit and would gladly recommend it, although it is the only liquid kit I've used.

oops sorry iv just seen you like to be called Simon!

The filter that went in the with the neons - had it been in the tank as well or was it out of the cupboard? If it was out of the cupboard it would have had no bacteria in it so the ammonia level could have built up and affected the neons. And neons do have a reputation for being delicate fish. This could explain why they have been badly affected. Keep on with the treatment, but if you don't feel it is working, run some carbon in the filter (or maybe in the other filter you mention) for 24 hours to remove the current med then try eSHa 2000. Throw the carbon away as it will be full of the med.

I will be honest with you and say it is not looking good for the catfish. I know you said it is your favourite, but you need to prepare for the worst.
And please don't replace it with another one, not now while there are problems in the tank, and not later when things have been sorted. Sucking loaches are not good community fish. They get too big for a 100 litre tank, and they get nasty as they mature. Can I suggest you read the last post in this thread for an example of why they aren't good community fish.



You have been unfortunate enough to find out for yourself one of the first lessons of fish keeping - don't trust the shop. Forums tend to be the best places because the members are all interested in fish and aren't trying to sell anything. Another good site for information is Seriously Fish. Their database has a lot more species than here, though it does help to know the latin names of fish you want to read up on.

Very sorry to read of your misfortunes - poor you and hubby.

Glad that others have been able to offer you helpful advice - water changes in particular are key to maintaining good water quality and all the more important at the current time until the situation settles.

My initial thoughts on reading your post were that the move to the quarantine tanks does seem to have been the 'catalyst' for the problems, possibly due to not having an established source of good bacteria in the filter media to cope with the ammonia in one/both of the quarantine tanks, and/or the stress factor.  If splitting up the fish between quarantine tanks or moving some of the fish out of the main tank to medicate them in a quarantine tank, then the best course of action is to generally put some of the existing filter media (eg sponge, filter wool) in each of the filters, so that each tank's filters have some established bacteria in them.  Hopefully that'll be helpful if you do go on to medicate any of them.  On that note, if you have any carbon in your filters, that should be removed before adding medication to the tank, to ensure that the medication gets a chance to work properly rather than getting absorbed by the carbon.

If the filter in one of the quarantine tanks were much stronger flow relative to the size of the tank and filter flow that the fish had come from, this may have an effect - I wonder if this might possibly be contributing to what seems like a buoyancy/swimbladder type of problem in the catfish and maybe even the neon caught in the filter.  If this might be the issue, then it might be useful if moving the filter from the main tank into the quarantine tank again, such as to medicate, to reduce the flow by squeezing some sponge into where the water comes out of the filter and using a small elastic band or such like to keep it in place.

I would be tempted not to feed the catfish flakes for a few days - if there is some sort of swimbladder/buoyancy problem, a change in diet to something more veg-based can often help eg tiny morsels of pea (after the shell has been taken off) or even a slice of courgette. In fact, all the fish might benefit from this anyway - even one pea, with the shell off and cut into tiny morsels, shared out between all the fish as the only food tomorrow. I feed my fish a pea once or twice a week, to provide variety in their diet and prevent constipation from their flake-/pellet-based diet.

It might also be worth taking a look at your water company's website, to find out what your PH and water hardness is. For example, if both were very high, then it's possible that the water may not be optimal for the type of fish you have (eg tetras and catfish are generally soft water fish), and that this unfortunate experience of the tank leak has exacerbated this. Although the immediate necessity is to try to get your fish better, once we know what your water hardness and PH is, others with more expertise may be able to advise further on how to optimise the conditions for your fish.

Hope this and others' advice helps - and best of luck!

If you have an Ammonia treatment, which will render Ammonia non-toxic, I would use it immediately. Which one do you have?

Don't use this instead of, but as well as frequent water changes.

Your 226ppm hardness is equivalent to 12 German degrees, for those sites that use that unit.
Seriously Fish lists neon's range with an upper limit of 215ppm hardness, so they are right at the edge of their comfort zone. It could be that the move to the temporary tank pushed them over the edge. Given their reputation, that wouldn't be difficult. Even though you moved a filter into both temporary tanks, it could be that the one that went in with the neons didn't have quite enough bacteria to deal with their waste, though any ammonia or nitrite would have been dealt with fairly quickly as the bacteria numbers would have increased in the presence of their food.

Do you find your cherry barbs feeding on the bottom? I have 7 natural coloured and 7 albino cherry barbs and they scour the bottom for food. Of course that might be due to the presence of a swarm of locusts in the tank, errrm sorry a shoal of emperor tetras, which eat all the mid water food in about 10 seconds 
Once you get the problems sorted, it might be an idea to get more cherry barbs as they behave nicely in a shoal. They are fine at your hardness.
But if you do want true bottom dweller, look at corydoras. There are 3 species suitable for a tank your size, but only one of them is commonly available - pygmy cories. You won't find them in the database on here, so search for Corydoras pygmaeus on Seriously Fish (I gave you the link a few posts ago). The other 2 species are Corydoras hastatus and Corydoras habrosus. But it does depend on what is on the bottom of the tank. Cories in general do not like sharp gravel or sand as it can damage their barbels, and the dwarf species are better with smaller particles, by that I mean sand or small smooth gravel. Pygmy cories' hardness range is up to 15 German deg (SF website sometimes uses German deg, sometimes ppm!). But cories do tend to be on the delicate side, so if you do decide on them, wait a while.
Another bottom dweller to think about is the dwarf chain loach, provided your tank is around 80cm long and doesn't have sharp gravel. The downside is that they cost a lot and you'd need a minimum of 4, with 6 being better. This fish has changed its name several times recently. When you research it, it could be called Botia sidthimunki, Yasuhikotakia sidthimunki or Ambastaia sidthimunki.


You can always go window shopping in all your local shops and see what's available. But don't let them persuade into buying anything until the neons' illness is resolved.

I was wondering what you repaired the tank with? Maybe something in that is effecting your fish.

Very sorry to hear that the catfish didn't make it.

If, once all of this settles/is resolved, you do get to the stage about thinking of other catfish, see http://www.thinkfish.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,2161.0.html where and why I highly recommend getting them in decent-sized shoals, following my experience of pygmy cories.