help with my honeycomb cat! not eating and in general looks sickly

[pandamonium]

hey everyone,

so i bought 3 honeycomb cats about 3 weeks ago and this week i found i have ich in my tank i have started treatment already with heat and coppersafe. turns out just heat would be fine but i already bought the coppersafe so just to be safe i used it. problem is this behavior started before the ich happened. how can i get her to eat again? she also comes out in the day which is rare for that species so im not sure what is happening. attached is a photo of her under her log. you can see ich on her tail but you can also see a strange yellow lump near her head, and how thin she is.
thanks for the help!

[Trickerie]

Originally Posted by pandamonium

hey everyone,

so i bought 3 honeycomb cats about 3 weeks ago and this week i found i have ich in my tank i have started treatment already with heat and coppersafe. turns out just heat would be fine but i already bought the coppersafe so just to be safe i used it. problem is this behavior started before the ich happened. how can i get her to eat again? she also comes out in the day which is rare for that species so im not sure what is happening. attached is a photo of her under her log. you can see ich on her tail but you can also see a strange yellow lump near her head, and how thin she is.
thanks for the help!

In proper light, are those spots white or black?? If they are black that isn't ich, its a parasitic fluke larvae.

[Psionic]

Even if it comes out during the day, you still need to feed them at night. Mine may look like they won't eat, but when the light goes off and the food gets blown about, they'll come running when they notice it. I put in a small amount so they'll take notice of it, then actually feed them when they come out.

I feed golden pearls at night and they skim along the surface devouring them. If I put in frozen daphnia, then just stay and eat the cube from my hand. They're little pigs.


-Val

[pandamonium]

Originally Posted by Trickerie

In proper light, are those spots white or black?? If they are black that isn't ich, its a parasitic fluke larvae.

trickerie the spots are white. sorry, when the flash comes on you cant see the fish so i turned off flash. the spots look black but are actually white.

Originally Posted by Psionic

Even if it comes out during the day, you still need to feed them at night. Mine may look like they won't eat, but when the light goes off and the food gets blown about, they'll come running when they notice it. I put in a small amount so they'll take notice of it, then actually feed them when they come out.

I feed golden pearls at night and they skim along the surface devouring them. If I put in frozen daphnia, then just stay and eat the cube from my hand. They're little pigs.


-Val

val, i have read about these golden pearls. what exactly are they? like i came across a site and they are different sizes and all that so i was wondering what they were. i put food in usually around 12:30 pm and shut off the lights. i even cover the side of my tank closest to my computer if i plan to be up late. i try to ensure its dark but they still wont budge at night. once in a while i will see one or 2 racing around the tank. do you put food in at this point? usually, i drop a cube of frozen bloodworms in about 1 hour after its dark hoping that the scent will entice them. how do you do it? like the handfeeding?

[Trickerie]

Originally Posted by pandamonium

trickerie the spots are white. sorry, when the flash comes on you cant see the fish so i turned off flash. the spots look black but are actually white.

Ok, if its Ich, then I'd be more concerned about the yellow lump and the cats behavior. Does it keep its fins clamped? Is its gill movement increased? Does it scratch against surfaces? It may be nothing, but it also may be a parasite of some kind. Examine it closely, you can sometimes even see it move :| Id keep an eye on that lump.

Or, the fish may just be stressed about its new living conditions and from the Ich. Its hard to say.

Just get her eating as much as you can.

[pandamonium]

the fins are not clamped but the catfish has a lot of gill movement. i tend to see it sporadically though in all three of my catfish. as far as i know, she does not scratch the lump against any surface, though they are woodcats so they hide in driftwood, that might scratch them a little? ill keep an eye on the lump. its like a discoloration kinda deal. before the ich she was acting pretty good. swimming around. now its hard to see all three of them eating. maybe i had a chemical spike of some kind in the tank? they are certainly not moving as much as before.
i bought a turkey baster and put bloodworms in it to kinda shoot into her tunnel. she came out and slurped some up, not much though. i guess its a start. for a catfish that is supposedly crazy for bloodworms, my 3 honeycombs arent too crazy for them. i hope its just them adjusting to the new tank. after i deal with the ich, ill see how they are.

[Psionic]

Originally Posted by pandamonium

trickerie the spots are white. sorry, when the flash comes on you cant see the fish so i turned off flash. the spots look black but are actually white.



val, i have read about these golden pearls. what exactly are they? like i came across a site and they are different sizes and all that so i was wondering what they were. i put food in usually around 12:30 pm and shut off the lights. i even cover the side of my tank closest to my computer if i plan to be up late. i try to ensure its dark but they still wont budge at night. once in a while i will see one or 2 racing around the tank. do you put food in at this point? usually, i drop a cube of frozen bloodworms in about 1 hour after its dark hoping that the scent will entice them. how do you do it? like the handfeeding?

It's fish food that is shaped almost liked a raspberry or piece of popcorn. They float a lot like they're a small live food.

If you're feeding them at noon, it might not be their feeding time by habit? Maybe it'll take some getting used to by them. I'll dip in a daphnia cube a few times so it'll sprinkle a little bit into the tank, then wait a minute before dissolving more into the tank. I turn on a small bedside reading lamp so I can watch them come up and eat. They'll very quickly come up to the surface and start gliding across it sucking up food. Then they just start eating it from my fingers while I'm letting it dissolve into the tank.


-Val

[pandamonium]

Originally Posted by Psionic

It's fish food that is shaped almost liked a raspberry or piece of popcorn. They float a lot like they're a small live food.

If you're feeding them at noon, it might not be their feeding time by habit? Maybe it'll take some getting used to by them. I'll dip in a daphnia cube a few times so it'll sprinkle a little bit into the tank, then wait a minute before dissolving more into the tank. I turn on a small bedside reading lamp so I can watch them come up and eat. They'll very quickly come up to the surface and start gliding across it sucking up food. Then they just start eating it from my fingers while I'm letting it dissolve into the tank.


-Val

i usually feed them at midnight and put some bloodworms into the water. so its completely dark when i feed them. still none of them come out to eat. yesterday i used a turkey baster and squirted food into their tunnels. 2 of them ate it but defeinitely did not go crazy for the bloodworms as i would have thought. ill try to find those cubes and maybe get some dried daphnia and try what you mentioned. if that works, then that would be great.

[Psionic]

It's most likely that they're feeling bad cause of the ich. But anything they take is still better than nothing. Honeycombs are notorious for getting outbreaks of bad ich. Sadly, a lot of them don't recover. I've never looked up what exactly causes them to get it so easily and so bad though as compared to other fish.


-Val

[pandamonium]

yeah that is true. i couldnt feed my third catfish but it seems to be getting enough food anyhow. its quite chubby. yeah it looks like the catfish is covered in ich, but the other two are perfectly fine, at least their outward appearance is. my rams seem to be handling the ich well, only one has spots left. im hoping that the ich hits its next stage soon, so it will die faster. i have another pic of my sick honeycomb. looks kinda weird. some of the spots seemed almost yellow? in the picture they are white but to my eye they looked yellow. its probably just more ich? i dont know why this catfish is getting hit so hard by whatever is going on, but none of my other fish seem to be affected (knock on wood). maybe its what you were saying. in that case, im defeintely gonna try to reduce stress in my tank. keep the ich from returning or showing up again.