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We got a Gymnotus sp. (podanopterus?) "Zebra Knife" in to our LFS a couple of days ago. At first i noticed it scraping alot against the substrate and driftwood. I thought it was just irritated at the new water. But now, on day four it just keeps scraping itself against everything. Can't see anything different with it otherwise, been eating and everything. I suspect it is having some kind of parasite. Is it safe to medicate, and if not, what can i do? Also in the tank are several L-numbers, hoplosternums and S.lima.

Thanks in advance.

Maybe it`s eye`s aren`t the best

those knife's need a sandy substrate to scrape, and they scrape often.

wich substrate do you have?

if you don't trust it, you can add a bit of seasalt or state of the art medications; the stuff that's "catfish-friendly"; ai the more expensive stuff.
cheap meds often contain a load of copper and that can seriously harm your cats.

check your pH as well; might be a pH-burn.

and how's the nitrate? these things are quite sensitive to that.

Durlanger, these fish have bad eyesight. their electricity makes up for that and more! they navigate by "radar".....

TalenT wrote:We got a Gymnotus sp. (podanopterus?) "Zebra Knife" in to our LFS a couple of days ago. At first i noticed it scraping alot against the substrate and driftwood. I thought it was just irritated at the new water. But now, on day four it just keeps scraping itself against everything. Can't see anything different with it otherwise, been eating and everything. I suspect it is having some kind of parasite. Is it safe to medicate, and if not, what can i do? Also in the tank are several L-numbers, hoplosternums and S.lima.

Thanks in advance.

"zebra knife" like this ?

http://www.arofanatics.com/members/amiidae/flashcarapo/

mine will do that when the water condition is bad. will stop when i do water change.

thanks för the replys.

sidguppy. substrate is a mix, regular sand 0.3-0.5mm and "faxe" limestone-sand (not too much of the limestone but it keeps the ph steady at 7.5).

high nitrate (don't know if nitrate in english is the same as NO2 or NO3,in swedish: NO2=nitrit,NO3=nitrat)levels might be the case, since i tested the tapwater in our store and found out that there are some NO2 in our tapwater (sorry, i'm not at work now and i don't remember the results exactly) we were in contact with our suppliers of tapwater and they seemed concerned. Howewer, in the well-cycled tanks in the store (including the one with the zebra-knife) the N02-levels are not measurable. (during a waterchange this might ofcourse change... )

amiidae. our zebra-knife look a little like yours, but it's much darker on the head and first part of the body, the zebra pattern is most visible in the tail.

like this ?

http://www.arofanatics.com/members/amii ... knifefish/

...thats more like it, but with more contrast, and what i remember (not at work now) more white/black color, no orange/brown color involved. We have had G.carapo in the store earlier, and they were almost olive-green and greyish and not at all the contrast thats in the pattern of this fish that we have now. It also seems slimmer and more elongate than G.carapo (atleast the ones i've seen). It's head seems smaller in proportion to the body lenght compared to the G.carapo we have had before.

TalenT wrote:(don't know if nitrate in english is the same as NO2 or NO3,in swedish: NO2=nitrit,NO3=nitrat)

Just put an "e" on the end of the swedish words and you've got the english variety... So your tapwater has nitrite in it... No good, eh?

--
Mats

No good indeed... my boss has been in contact with the people that supply our tapwater, and it seems that it's probably some kind of leakage. It has affected a quite large area of town, all neighbouring buildings has the same ammounts of nitrite. From what i'm told it's not that healthy to drink, esp. for small children. I live in the other end of town and my tapwater is ok. And so are all my fish at home.

Sorry to hear about your water supply. We had to switch to a filtration system in my household because of all kinds of nonsense in the water. I've found that if the water won't work for the fish, it won't work for humans, either.

The town i live in is known among aquarists in Sweden for its crappy water. And as an employee in an LFS you get to hear the most amazing stories... last autumn one of our customers (the guy is not a noob) lost his entire stock of Malawi cichlids (in a 720litre tank) directly after a 20% waterchange. The guy told me that he couldn't keep from crying. He couldn't do anything, just watch them die. The same week we started loosing nearly all of our discus in the store(only the largest specimens survived with obvious damage to skin and gills) , and many of our malawi/tanganyika cichlids... horrible. I don't remember exactly but that time the watersupplyers told us that they had added higher ammounts of Aluminumsulfate? (not sure) to get rid of silt particles in the tapwater... from now on i try to drink as small ammounts that i can of tapwater and drink bottled instead... (and beer ofcourse )