PlanetCatfish.com

This short video is the larger of my 2 bullheads. The same fish in my signature photo(it was much smaller then). Why are their fins so small? Their tank mates are banned killiefish. The killies stay away and are afraid of the catfish. Is it fin nipping or disease?

View My Video

It looks like fin erosion due to bad water.

Did you check your water quality? How often do you feed the fish and change the water?

I dont own a test kit and I did have cloudy problems. That was mainly due to under filtration. Things are better as far as that goes. I do water changes and maybe should do a bigger one, soon. So you probably nailed it. Will they grow back? thanks

I think New Jersey has fairly hard water, so it should be little problem to do large water changes - 40-50% of the tank volume isn't a problem.

--
Mats

I'll get right on it, thanks.

The fish are doing well. But, will the fins grow back?

MatsP wrote:I think New Jersey has fairly hard water, so it should be little problem to do large water changes - 40-50% of the tank volume isn't a problem.

Mats, how is water hardness linked with the amount of WS?

Big water changes in soft water causes big changes in pH and relative TDS value, which can be bad for fish. In hard water (as long as it's not several months or years since the last decent size water change), this is much less of an issue.

--
Mats