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I have had a syno eupterus for about 6 months and when I bought him, he had beautiful fins and coloring. He hides a lot in the wood, but I saw him last week and noticed that ALL his fins are gone! His beautiful dark coloring and spotting seems to have faded/changed also. What would cause this?! Is there anything I can do? He still actively swims in the tank and goes after food flakes/algae wafers, but what is wrong with him? Do fins grow back? THe other fish in the tank are cory cats (2), a different catfish (not sure what kind -black with white spots) and an angel fish. They all seem fine. The angel has been acting a bit sluggish lately though.
Help!
THanks,
Katy

Need more info- What size tank, how often do you do water changes? It's probably either poor water quality or aggressive tankmates. If your different catfish is an Asian upsidedown catfish that explains alot. They can be very territorial/aggressive.

Fins do grow back; spines are a different matter. Like Tom said, try to find out what the other catfish is. Could you give a more expanded description of that fish, so we can help you to determine it and thus may discover whether or not that is the cause of your problem..

The other catfish is an "Agamyxis pectinifrons; Common Name Spotted Raphael Catfish, Spotted Talking Catfish". Tank size is 38 gallons and we do water changes about once a month. What about the water would be negative...Ph, temperature, filters, ammonia, nitrites, nitrates? We have 2 filters (one is about 6 months old and the other is years old). We have gravel on the bottom and the big catfis hide in the african drift root wood.
Thank you for all your help! The spines on his back are gone too. All the fish seem to leave one another alone and he seemed so "well armored" I assumed no one would bother with him anyway.
Katy

More followup... The raphael is the same size as the eupterus.

Any ideas? I did a thorough water change yesterday.

Hi Katy,
No way the Agamyxis is responsible for the damage on the Synodontis. If his spines have gone too, I'm afraid your fish has some disease, but I'm not able to tell which and what caused it.

Any chance of a photo of the eupterus, I agree none of the tank mates would have done that. I does as mark says point towards disease. The actual disease and the extent of the damage is key to whether it will recover.

Unfortunately my camera is broken, but I can try to describe him to you better. From his front fins forward looks whitish -kind of like if someone tried to bleach him or rubbed white stuff on his head(it is not white ich spots). His white "stripe" down the side of his body seems more pronounced. All his other coloring I assume is like it was. His fins all seem to be missing (even the tail fin) as well as his spine.
Katy

Could this be another case of that recently brought up "lateral line" disease, except further progressed?
Check this out Katy and see if it is like yours: http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3422

That picture closely resembles my fish in that the white line is very pronounced and there are bleached/faded/loss of pigment areas on top of it's head. On mine, the areas that seem to have lost pigment are widespread all over it's head. I don't know if the lateral line on mine is riased or not, it just seems brighter, but I cannot get taht close to it to be able to tell. I was reading that the lateral line disease causes holes, but I don't see evident holes. There does not seem to be mention of fins or spine disappearing in the information I was reading.

What is recommended as the best treatment? It looked like options were Metronidazole or Paragon II.
THank you for all your help! Keep the ideas coming!
Katy