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Hi all,

A friend of mine stopped his aquarium and gave me one of his fish.
I have two questions about it:

1. What kind of synodontis is this?

2. Does he look normal and healthy? Need to mention that he is about 6 years old.

Link to pictures:
http://www.essensysgroup.be/Essensys/We ... ld0923.jpg
and
http://www.essensysgroup.be/Essensys/We ... ld0924.jpg

THANKS a lot for feedbacks!
Regards,
Thomas

Not sure which species of syno he/she is, but from the pictures, i'd say he's in bad way. It looks like he's lost most of the caudal (tail) fin and much on the dorsal (the one on top). Do you know what other fish he was in with? I'd definitely get him into a quarantine tank, and try to treat with anti-bacterial chemicals to stop the fins from getting infected. Some pics from the side would be useful. You need temperature about 25C (78F), lots of aeration and some TLC and he should pull through.
Good luck!
Martin

hi, thanks for your feedback.
the guy who gave it to me was a bit of a newby. he did put this synodontis and some tetras together with 2 zebra danios. In my opinion, the zebra danios are the ones who made the synodontis look like this. The tetras, which i refused to take over, looked like they got finnipped quite badly.

The synodontis is now in a seperated tank with some decoration to hide in and at 24°C. I will take it up to 25°C. Little question, whats TLC?

Thnx for feedback.
Thomas

TLC = "Tender Love and Care" or some such.

--
Mats

Oh i see
I will take care of him! Any idea what spieces in the Synodontis group it is?

It's been a long long time since i've kept zebra danios, but I'm not aware that they are bad fin nippers.


It seems very unlikely to me that a zebra danio could inflict that kind of damage to a syno.


I would suggest finrot, or acid erosion of the fins.


Looks like he might have whitespot or velvet too.


Synos are tough, so if he is eating he'll probably pull through with good quality water.


We may need better pictures to get an ID though.

thnx for feedback.
I could make these pictures when he was in a bucket before i released him into the aquarium. But now, in the aquarium, it is kinda difficult to make good pictures since he hides most of the time in the caves or behind the stones.
I got a larger image here: http://geocities.com/fzthomas/BILD0923.JPG (maybe that helps)

Concerning the zebra danios -> they are schooling fish. If you keep only two of them, like that guy did, then they tend to become bored and start to finnip on other fish. They attacked the tetras for sur, but maybe the syno is just sick because of bad treatment.

To be honest, i'm happy my friend is no longer keeping fish

is a commonly exported species and does look superficially similar.

Could be a hybrid though.


Wait until he is better and post some good pics for a more definite ID.

Thnx for id.

Considering the condition he is in now, how long you think it will take for him to recover?

Considering the condition he is in now, how long you think it will take for him to recover?

Could be weeks or months, but you should see a fairly fast improvement in the short term.


He will regenerate his fins faster with warm water (27/28C), plenty of oxygen, loads of water changes, and lots of food.

Try to give him frozen food such as bloodworm, tubifex, mysis and krill, as well as the dried foods.