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I had 3 pictus cat along with many barbs in my 55 gallon tank (plenty of fake plants and driftwood)for almost 4 months. Everything was fine, tank was well-cycled. One day, as a cleaning routine, I changed about 40% of the water adding bio-coat and bio-safe to it.

The one thing I did wrong was that I let the temperature slip dramatically from about 78 to 72 degrees. Over the next 12 hours it rose back to normal. However, after the water change, the catfish were extremely stressed and swimming abnormally up and down the sides of the glass.

The next morning one was dead and the other two followed within the next two days. Water quality was as follows:

ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate N/A
pH 6.8
temp 78

After my water tested fine, I went to the pet store and bought 3 more pictus thinking that I had overstressed them with the temperature swing and that everything would be fine now.

Two days later, one of the pictus came down with ick.. completely covered.

I treated with QuickCure for 5 days at full strength. The ick went away but during treatment all the barbels of all 3 pictus began shriveling on the ends and eventually fell off to less than half the original size.

The catfish with the ick died two days later and another one died as well....

Two weeks later, the sole survivor still seems stressed. He swims in the bubbles and hangs out near the surface in the current of the filter mainly and not at the bottom. At feeding time, he tries to eat from the top, even if I put in sinking pellets.... the food is at the bottom and he's crazily swimming around with his mouth open skimming the surface of the water???

Water conditions are great as before.. but I went out and bought a nitrate test kit.

Nitrates are at 25ppm.

Barbels haven't grown back, fins don't look extremely healthy either. I am currently treating with Aquatronix Kanacyn which is a wide range antibiotic incase he has some kind of bacterial or fungal infection making his fins and barbels seem unhealthy. Treatment is almost over and he has not responded at all.

At this point I am perplexed and do not know what else to do. I eventually want to have 3 pictus in my tank but am weary of buying more only to have them die.

All along the barbs (tinfoil and albino tiger) are perfectly fine, big appetites and extremely healthy...

Any suggestions will help!!!!!!

The one thing I did wrong was that I let the temperature slip dramatically from about 78 to 72 degrees

Does this meam you filled the tank after the water change with cold water.

I changed about 40% of the water adding bio-coat and bio-safe to it.

I'm not 100% familiar with these chemicals, maybe someone else can inform you of the drawbacks of these if any. My question is did you mix them in a bucket with the tap water or in the tank?

how often do you change the water? do you use a gravel cleaner to keep the bottom substrate clean?

The more information you give us the better we can advise.

How much bio-coat and bio-safe did you add?

This is the first fishtank I ever had, and as stupid as it was, I did use cold tap water to refill the aquarium.

I now know much better... I never really appreciated how sensitive fish were to things...

I also added 1 capful of bio-safe and 1 capful of bio-coat for each 10 gallons of water as directed on the back of the bottle.

I did not however, mix them in a bucket.. I poured them directly into the tank.. I honestly can't remember which came first, the chemicals or the new water....

Again, a stupid mistake that I now know not to do.

I put in the last treatment of Kanacyn last night and will put the charcoal back into the filters tomorrow... the fins still seem a little messed up... but I did catch him hanging out on the bottm underneath a rock today. I suppose thats a good sign.

Now that I am a little wiser on what not to do with the aquarium, I would like to get a couple more pictus to join him. I just don't know when is a good time to introduce them to the tank..

Also, on a side note.... After all the things wrong that I did I can't believe the tinfoil barbs and the tiger barbs didn't get stressed at all.... So I guess they would be considered extremely hardy fish?

Catfishes are more sensitive to medication than most other fishes as they lack scales. I think it was the temperature change and the bio-safe and bio-coat that did them in.