Channel Cat Mistake

[fatboy8]

Just picked one up a few hours ago. My 55 I was putting it in was cloudy from a pH chemical I used and it’s been a nightmare trying to clear it up. So I thought while acclimating I'll do a 25% water change and wash my canister filter media. So I was washing the filter media and I'm hearing like a drip and I look over and the bucket I have is overflowing with water I was emptying from my tank. I scrambled water was everywhere lucky my basement is tile but it was really puddled. So I'm trying to clean this up and get the filter back hooked up and I forgot about the cat. So he was hurting real good but I was like I'll release him hopefully the O2 in my tank will help him out. Nope he wasn’t looking good so i got a zip lock bag filled it put him in it with a hose connected to my air pump. He looked good again dumped him then he got real bad again. Currently he’s back in the zip lock on the bottom sitting upright. He is moving more than normal and it doesn’t look like he’s struggling. Hopeful the third time’s the charm here. If he survives I'll post some pictures when my tank clears up.

[fatboy8]

Good and bad news first tanks all cleared up after about 4 hours of doing work to it but bad is my cats not doing well. Everytime I release him he goes on his side and doenst look good at all. So I've been putting him into a ziplock bag that has a few small holes for water movement and a direct air line from my air pump. He seems to do fine in there but when hes released he looks horrible. Any one ever run into this before? Its like I'm going to have to get a mini O2 tank for this guy to swim around with.

[Viktor Jarikov]

Sounds troubling but I do not get what's happening. I mean I understand the series of the events you have described but if the water in your 55 gal is back to normal with the usual normal O2 concentration, then bagged or not your fish's getting the same O2 supply.

It's not that the bubbler is supplying much of oxygen. The bubbler's primary mode of action is through stirring and agitation of the tank water. 99% of all the O2 in a tank usually enters the tank water through the water surface and then the bubbler brings this aerated water down and all around the tank and carries the O2-depleted water to the surface so it gets O2. 1% of O2 enters the tank water through the bubbles produced by the bubbler. Anyhow, that is my general understanding, which may require tweaking or not...

[fatboy8]

Yeah I'm clueless to what was wrong with him. I released him after being bagged for four hours and he swam off fine. I did observe he looked very weak. He couldnt swim straight or anything. He's still breathing a little harder then I'd like but he looks good. Fed him some bloodworm and he ate some. He does look skinner than normal and maybe thats the issue here. I was worried that my bass would eat him but its funny the bass just hovers over him chasing the sunnies away almost like its watching out for the cat.

[Viktor Jarikov]

If he ate, that's a great sign that he is almost fine and will be fine in all likelihood. I can't find the size. What's his size? Is he just thin or emaciated?

[fatboy8]

Looked malnutritioned normally my lfs has quality heathly fish but I guess I should of picked this time. Woke up this morning and my cat did a disappearing act inside of my lmb's stomach. Hate it when that happens but I picked another one up that I picked out personally. He's nice and fat and fingers crossed wont fit into my bass's stomach

[Viktor Jarikov]

Oops. Don't underestimate a bass' mouth (and stomach) - they are phenomenally voracious, greedy predators with huge mouths and, sadly, eyes often bigger than their stomachs... more often than not they don't know ahead of time if they can swallow their prey but will still try, killing it and sometimes themselves in the process.

[smitty]

So the Bass solved the problem.