PlanetCatfish.com

Hi there. I am new here but I figured this is the best place to get help with a new catfish. Three weeks ago I inherited an 8-inch striped raphael catfish (Platydoras costatus) from a friend. All seemed fine with the little guy until one week ago when I moved my 50 gal tank to a new house...I kept the filter media intact, so although there was a short spike in ammonia it soon went away.

However, since then I have observed little wisps coming off the Raphael. At first I thought it was fungus and treated accordingly (at half dose because I also have 5 clown loaches). Didn't help. I also treated for Ick, but no effect. Now I think maybe it's just shedding scales? Do raphaels do that? How do I stop it? In the mornings he looks fine but come evening there are little white wispies all over but especially around his face/whiskers.

Ammonia/nitrite tested to 0 yesterday. Nitrate was 15 ppm after the medication but I have since done a 20% water change. Temp 79 F. Tank is 50 gallons with 5 clown loaches and one large pleco. Black sand substrate. I haven't been able to afford to decorate the tank yet (eventually I will add driftwood/pottery/plants) so he doesn't really have anywhere to hide yet. Could that be making the Raphael sick? I know they like dark palces.

I also haven't seen the guy eat anything although I assume he must be (doesn't seem any skinnier). I've been feeding various assortments of shrimp pellets, flakes, algae tabs once a day at night.

Thanks for any help/advice!

It's not shedding scales, but shedding mucus. This is indicative that something may be wrong with your water. What's your pH?

Thanks for the response PH is 6.8 and gh is 18+dgh...GH was off the scale actually

Make a water change with RO or ention. water

Just for clarification, Durlänger is trying to say that your water is very hard, and that's what the fish is suffering from. I would agree with that, if you "top out" the hardness test at 18+ dGH, then it's way on the hard side for the fish. Particularly if it's just been moved from a softer environment.

If you're in the US, you can buy multi-gallon jugs of water with very low hardness in the supermarket (sorry, can't remember what it's called) [1]. This is a lot cheaper than getting water from LFS, but in the long run, you are likely to need your own RO unit.

[1] To see that it's low hardness, you should read the contents/chemical analysis, and it should say very small amounts of CaC03/Calcium Carbonates. Other carbonates are also part of hardness. Compare some different bottles, and you'll see that there is a big difference when you find the right thing. Whatch out for nitrate as well. The drinking water sold by one super-market here in the UK has about 20 mg/l NO3. That's quite high, and wouldn't be very suitable for keeping fish in... [But it's also full of carbonates, so unless it's Tang/Malawi sicklids, it wouldn't be much point from that perspective either].

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Mats

Thank you very much for your reply. My kh was 2dkh, ph was 6.8, but the gh never had a reaction...I was up to 25 drops before I quit. So either my GH is over 25 dgh (and my water is really really hard) or the kit is dodgy.

So far the catfish has improved a lot, and none of the other fish are having problems (except for my clown loaches turning very dark colors). So I am wondering if the GH kit was just too old. I will get a new one, retest, and then buy some bottled water if it's really that high.

Thanks again