catfish stopped eating!

[sarahswank]

My Kampango catfish (Bagrus meridionalis) has stopped eating. Two days ago I fed them a new type of frozen food (formula one). I totally forgot to check on them eating it, and when I checked yesterday, the water was pretty cloudy. I ended up doing almost a 75% water change because of how severe the cloudyness was. Today my channel cat ate, but my kampango is just swimming listlessly on the side of the tank. No reaction to adding food into the water. Not eating is highly unsualy for him. Any ideas?

[Viktor Jarikov]

Hi Sarah! Let's start with the water parameters and what kit you use.

[sarahswank]

i am using an API test kit. It is meant for saltwater but I bought the freshwater cards online, so it should be right.(It tested true compared to my LFS on saltwater about a week ago, so chemicals are definately still good)

Ph is 7.8
nitrates 0
nirites 0
and the bad one... ammonia .25 down from .35 yesterday. I didnt test it pre-water change, but it had to have been sky high. (I know ammonia is bad, but he was MUCH more active even when the water was cloudy)

Background on the tank is that I used straight from the tap water (city uses no clorine, flouride or anything else, even my saltwater aquarium does well on plain water) and the aquarium is unheated, no overhead lamp, no chemical additives. It housed only the channel cat and this african cat. They both have done really well for about 6 months. might be even more.

My 75% water change was more of a 50% water change, add in about 25% water, and then suck back out until I only had about 1/3 of the water left, then filled it back up with my storage, room temperature water. I was planning on doing 10-20% water changes every day for the next week, just to get the ammonia down without further shock.

My channel is doing very well, even though he was the one who displayed the most stress to the previous bad water and a large water change. Bad news is that they will be left alone in about 5 days, and without food for 2 full weeks, so ideas need to sort of fit that time frame. Any ideas?

[Viktor Jarikov]

It is most likely that your fish is reacting to the ammonia spike. What appears to me the most important is to understand why it came around.

If it was just the uneaten food, as you said, then now that you cleaned it up and keep up good WC's, it should not be a problem (check that none are trapped and rotting in the filter and in the substrate). If you have to leave, I'd suggest adding Ammo-Lock (I buy it liquid from petsolutions.com) to convert the ammonia present and future into a non-toxic form. It does not affect your BB's.

If they have been eating well, not eating for 2 weeks is no big deal whatsoever.

Much more active or less active when the ammonia was high or not as high - all of this may be not too relevant to try and disect now. Fish do not mix with ammonia. Perhaps his activity was "looking for a way out of this bad water" kind, or something else. This is a guessing game and likely will not have any bearing on what you need to do to remedy the situation.

[sarahswank]

That all makes sense. I am almost 100% sure the spike came from the food. He appears to be active and more importantly, not so dazed looking. I still havent offered feed yet, but as we all know.. no need to rush something like that.