P.buffei in Serious trouble! I need some serious help!

[FishyMcFishFish]

after doing a water change I sat down to look at my juwel lido 120 and after I had been distracted by my phone for a few minutes I hear a wierd noise coming from the tank that lasted about half a second. I looked up from my phone and notice one of my three stripe african glass catfish (P.buffei) swimming around at the top of the tank. The only problem is, I sold all of my P.buffei a few months ago (I think I had 10).

Upon further inspection I noticed that the little fella was missing his whole left pectoral fin and his nose looks really worn down like he has been rubbing it on something. I have no Idea how this happened or what to do. from what i've read, when kept alone they often go off their food and die slowly, but I don't have any room to buy another massive group of them and I am in no place to set up a new tank for them. I also have no idea how i'm supposed to treat his injuries or how on earth this happened in the first place. His only tankmates are 6 corydoras leopardus, 2 stonelapping minnows, 7 amano shrimp and a black neon tetra and i'm assuming that none fo these guys can tear the pectoral fin off of a catfish. The filter is a juwel bioflow medium I think.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how this happened or how I can nurse him back to health before trying to sell him to back to my lfs when they next get a shipment of these guys?

Thanks.

[Viktor Jarikov]

Is there redness or wounds on the snout and where the pec fin was?

If not, I'd not think these are recent injuries and I'd just let the fish be.

If there is redness or inflammation, lesions, fungus, etc., photos would help. But most usually pristine aerated water and lack of any other stress factors are all a fish needs to recover on its own.

[FishyMcFishFish]

Thanks for your reply Viktor!
there is a small red patch where his pectoral fin was and his nose just looks a little upturned and white. He is surprisingly active tonight and is being chased about by the black neon tetra. But he spent all day trying to wedge himself behind the filter. I have got an extra, large established sponge filter in the tank with ceramics in it to help upkeep with the water quality and i have given the main filter a good clean.

Unfortunately I can't currently provide photos as he hides whenever I go near the tank with a light source and he hides his wound behind the filter during the day but I will keep trying. I also managed to feed him some frozen mysis shrimp and bloodworm.

[Viktor Jarikov]

It doesn't sound like there is physical damage to worry about immediately. If it feeds, it's a great sign. If it feeds well, I believe it should be fine long term too. No need to medicate or anything like that. Being chased around is stressful but if it has places to hide, then being chased is almost like the catfish' own choice, I'd reckon.

Cleaning a filter can often cause the tank to become uncycled for a bit. I'd keep my eye on ammonia and nitrite especially vigilantly after a major filter clean.

[FishyMcFishFish]

I didn't clean the sponge filter and I didn't replace any of the sponges in the main filter apart from the filter floss, all I did was give each sponge a few squeezes in a bucket of tank water to remove some of the excess waste. I will keep checking the water just in case but I have never seen any I'll effects from this type of clean.

Thanks for your advice Viktor.

[Viktor Jarikov]

No problem. I only hope to help.

Just covering the bases. If you never check the ammonia and nitrite after a filter clean and your fish are healthy, chances are you'd never know whether the levels get a bit elevated as a result.

But if you are way over-filtering the setup, chances are a light clean wouldn't be enough to uncycle the tank.

Hopefully your catfish will do alright even handicapped and solo, for now.

[Birger]

These fish when in trouble tend to sit on the bottom somewhere and just shimmy, if still swimming that is good. They do need a group to be happy.
My first thought to your problem is that these are good at getting caught in filters etc.

Birger