57 replies to this topic

[Sean Phillips]

I've noticed over the past few days that my 7-8" White Sucker has some odd looking injuries I guess you could call them towards the ends of some of his fins. I'm not really sure how to describe them but I took some pictures. The best description I can think of would be that the afflicted parts of his fins are white or lighter colored than the healthy fins, they're frayed, and even have a redish-pink tint on them which leads me to think blood however I didn't think there was much if any blood that is present in fins on fish. The fish is behaving and feeding normally and is always out swimming like usual. However I did notice he had a short "flashing-spasm" a few minutes ago which I haven't noticed up until now. I'm pretty sure these marks are from my green sunfish possibly biting him but I'm not sure and there's not much I can do to stop that until I upgrade to a 180G in 1-4 months. The green sunfish is not extremely aggressive towards the sucker though and only makes any movements towards him when the sucker gets to close to her. Are there any meds I could use to treat this or anything else I could do to help?

PS, the sucker is in a 30G (36"x12"x16") with 3 Creek Chubs (5-6") and 1 female Green Sunfish (4") with a temp of 68F and a pH of 7.6. I do 50% water changes twice a week and feed all the fish flake twice a day. Yes the sucker is actually thriving on flake and rises in the water column to eat it, I occasionally give the sucker frozen brine shrimp or bloodworms as well.

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[Michael Wolfe]

I don't know if I can help you Sean, but let me throw a few things out there...

• Good food and clean water are the best medicine for captive fish. Sounds like you got that covered, but its always good to remind ourselves.
• I would suspect the creek chubs almost as much as the sunfish. They are rough and tumble fish, that go hard, play hard, fight hard, and eat everything. I could imagine them biting another fish just in a feeding frenzy of "lets eat everything that looks like flake or comes close to our mouths before anyone else can get any."
• I wonder if they could be abrasions (actual mechanical injuries)? How long have you had this fish and where is his hiding spot? Is he maybe wedging himself in some place that is slightly too small for him?
• Last comment, I am glad your guy is eating so far, but for long term I would recommend a finer substrate for him. Sandy bottom for him to sift through and do his sucker thing will be better for him in the long run, in my experience. I love the look of some of your big flat rocks as substrate, its very natural looking. I just wish there was more sandy areas between for that sucker mouth to get into.

[Sean Phillips]

I don't know if I can help you Sean, but let me throw a few things out there...

• Good food and clean water are the best medicine for captive fish. Sounds like you got that covered, but its always good to remind ourselves.
• I would suspect the creek chubs almost as much as the sunfish. They are rough and tumble fish, that go hard, play hard, fight hard, and eat everything. I could imagine them biting another fish just in a feeding frenzy of "lets eat everything that looks like flake or comes close to our mouths before anyone else can get any."
• I wonder if they could be abrasions (actual mechanical injuries)? How long have you had this fish and where is his hiding spot? Is he maybe wedging himself in some place that is slightly too small for him?
• Last comment, I am glad your guy is eating so far, but for long term I would recommend a finer substrate for him. Sandy bottom for him to sift through and do his sucker thing will be better for him in the long run, in my experience. I love the look of some of your big flat rocks as substrate, its very natural looking. I just wish there was more sandy areas between for that sucker mouth to get into.

Thanks for the tips. The creek chubs are definitely rough fish which could be doing this as well but I've personally never seen them bite anything that isn't flake except my fingers when I hand feed them, not to say they're not doing it behind my back. It could very week be abrasions since he does like it tightly jam himself under the sponge filter which he doesn't really fit under at this point but I've just never seen marks like that before from fish jamming into places which I've had happen with a few of my tropical cats. I've also had him since I believe about mid September. I know gravel isn't the best substrate for him but fortunately he still sifts through it, he'll take a few pieces into his mouth then spit them out fairly often, I do plan on definitely using sand as substrate once I upgrade him though. One other thing to note is he is pretty skittish and he'll sort of skid across the gravel and rocks along the bottom as he's running which could be damaging him, another reason I'll be using sand as the next substrate.

For now I'll see if I can prop up the sponge filter a bit more so it's less of a tight fit under it for him and try to move more gently around him.

[Sean Phillips]

Well kind of a bad update. While the pinkish-red marks seemed to have disappeared from his fins (except a bit left on his pelvic fins), he's now got pretty severe rips and tears in his caudal and dorsal fins. He's also been breathing faster than normal as well as resting vertically in the corner of the tank atop of the sponge filter for the past week or so. I'm starting to think that this is more of an internal problem than an external one. If I can figure out what it is I'll be glad to treat it in any way possible.

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[Michael Wolfe]

I don't know. Sounds like he is getting beat up and is hiding.

[sbtgrfan]

I agree. Sounds/looks like he's the victim of bullying

[Sean Phillips]

I'll keep a closer eye but I haven't seen any rough behavior towards him recently.

[gerald]

He looks thin too. I would move him to another tank without chubs, so he can get enough food. Suckers need to graze small amounts all day long, which is not likely to happen in a tank with chubs.

[Sean Phillips]

Unfortunately I don't have any tanks available to move him to at the time. He does eat a good bit of flake twice a day though during feeding, actually comes up half way in the water column and inverts at a 45 degree angle to eat flake before other fish can get it! I also target feed him frozen foods once or twice a week as well.

[Sean Phillips]

Are there any meds I could treat him with to patch up his fins and slow down the need to respirate?

[gerald]

I doubt it, unless you can find some Bully-B-Gone pills ... How about a screen tank divider?

[gzeiger]

Some sinking pellet food might be a good idea. That's an awfully big fish to maintain on flake.

[Sean Phillips]

I might be able to make a divider out of egg crate, I'll see when I can get ahold of some. I'll try to feed him shrimp pellets as well, actually harder to feed since the chubs often get them on the way down while the sucker is always pretty close to first on the flake.

[Sean Phillips]

Kind of derailing my own thread here but I figured it's somewhat related and uses less bandwidth than making another thread and I'm pretty much done with the sucker dilemma now that I'm aware of the solution. So my question for you guys if you can answer it is that most of the 7 darters in my 30L riffle tank look somewhat to very underweight and I'm feeding them either frozen brine, bloodworms, or daphnia twice a day in the morning and evening. I think it might be because they're swimming against a 230gph powerhead 24/7 but I'd think they'd be doing the same thing in the wild, especially at the collection point I got them at. Nitrates only rise to just under 10ppm after 7 days with a stock of 5 mimic shiners, 1 Bluntnose minnow, 6 banded killifish, 2 rainbow darters, 2 Greenside darters, 2 Variegate darters, and 1 banded darter. My question is whether I should feed these fish 3 times a day instead of 2 even though the other fish in the tank appear to be average weight or only very, very slightly below weight?

This is what my male Greenside looked like, he appears underweight to me but it could just be body structure, I'll let you darters pros decide that. Most of my darters look like this (stomach wise) except my rainbows because of their taller body structure, however they still look a little underweight as well.

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[gerald]

Yup, it's very much related to the sucker problem. Greensides, variegate, and banded darters are like suckers - they graze small food items all day long, so its hard to get enough food into them in a tank with shiners and killies. Rainbow darters are pretty good at stuffing themselves in a short period, so they can often compete OK with minnows. More frequent feeding is a good idea, and more variety of foods might help too.

[Sean Phillips]

Yup, it's very much related to the sucker problem. Greensides, variegate, and banded darters are like suckers - they graze small food items all day long, so its hard to get enough food into them in a tank with shiners and killies. Rainbow darters are pretty good at stuffing themselves in a short period, so they can often compete OK with minnows. More frequent feeding is a good idea, and more variety of foods might help too.

Gotcha, thanks for all your help, Gerald! I'll start feeding chopped up supermarket shrimp as well and I'm thinking about mixing in some spirulina, have you had any success with spirulina and darters?

[littlen]

Sean, try adding some live food items--particularly for the Greensides. Snails and blackworms would be easy to obtain and won't foul your tank if they go uneaten.

[Michael Wolfe]

That greenside looks thin and I would bet that there is not a live snail in the whole tank. They are sometimes difficult to keep fully healthy and plump and seem to need to eat all the time (like Gerald said). I would add some snails from another tank if you have them, or alternately, go to your LFS and try to get some snails from their live plant tank... sometimes they will let you pick out some snails.

[Sean Phillips]

I've been culturing some snails but I just haven't been producing a lot of them as late. I fear if I put them in then they'll all get eaten by the Greensides and there'll be nothing left to culture with. If you guys don't think the darters would eat them all then I'll gladly put in the dozen or so snails I've cultured.

[Michael Wolfe]

your hungry greenside will devour them