WTF...Cuckoo Cats and Peacock problem

[Colby Dixon]

Setup and Background:

4ft long 55 gallon tank
Normal rift lake water parameters
Tank has been up and running with same fish for well over a year...decor was sand with "holey rock"...decor is now sand with smoother limestone rocks.

Occupants:

1 Male Aulonocara sp Lwanda.
2 Synodontis grandiops
1 S. multipunctatus

The Problem:









About 6 weeks ago the male peacock began getting overly aggressive with the Syno's, chasing them into the holey rocks and scratching up the right side of his face. At first the wounds were healing very quickly and were fairly minor. About 4 weeks ago the Lwanda injured the right side of its face quite badly on the holey rock so my wife removed the holey rock and we stepped up the water changes to prevent infection. We replaced the rather sharp holey rock with smoother limestone rocks from the local landscape supply company. We thought this would solve the problem.

Now it seems that just about as soon as one wound heals, he's injuring himself again flirting with and chasing the cuckoo spawning Synos...The strange thing is that despite rearranging the tank the fish only seems to hurt its right side.

Some other weird interactions have also been happening between the catfish and peacock...The catfish have been swimming up alongside the peacock while he shimmies and shakes at them, the peacock will allow them to then swim up and over his face. It almost appears that the catfish are feeding on his face...It also seems that the catfish and peacock have decided to sleep in the same cave and I'm wondering if perhaps he's getting "finned" or chewed on while he's sleeping...

Solutions?

I've thought about moving the Syno's back to another tank and putting a large S. decorus in with him instead....I'm afraid he'll just tear up the decorus and keep hurting himself on the the rocks.

I've considered getting him some females to diffuse his aggression and give him something proper to flirt with...so I may get together with my local club and place an order for some large females.

I'm not too sure what to do as I'm not exactly sure what is causing all this damage...it almost looks like it has progressed into "lateral line erosion"...

Any ideas, suggestions or thoughts?

[Bas Pels]

it looks like hole in the head to me - but A I never heard this as a desease in Malawi tank and B I never herd this to be one sided only.

[PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn]

HITH is what it appears to be,

what are you feeding??

no offence, but is the tank dirty, with the sand it should avoid a lot of the problems of detrius being trapped, but have you cleaned under the rocks??

IMO the best way to treat it is very good quality diet, (consider supplementing a good pellet with frozen mysis, brine and so on) very frequent water changes (I would move it to a smaller tank and do daily 50% water changes (but not too small)) consider the use of melafix as well, as that "may" help speed up the process

one thing I would ask, why is he on his own (the synos don't really count. he's a cichlid, he wants to be with his own kind of cichlids) IMO, I think stress is a major contributor to HITH (and bloat as well, but thats another subject) maybe this lack of tank mates has led to this.

and I've seen your tanks, so I know its not going to be a case of neglect (as the common newbie post pictures of) so this isn't me saying that your not looking after him right, I'm just thinking of the reasons I can think off

[Lori Dixon]

We agree, it looks like HITH. He is fed a variety of foods including: Hikari freeze dried krill, NLS, Ocean Nutrition cichlid veggi flake, frozen foods: Hikari blood worms, krill, brine shrimp, ocean plankton, & PEI mysis. Since these pictures were taken I have changed approx. 50% of the water in his tank, cleaned out the filters, changed out some old carbon and put in new filter fiber pad.

He has been alone in the tank awaiting some females. I don't really have anything else that I could put with him and I never imagined that it would take just over 2 years to find and obtain some females. However, I placed an order for 4 large females from Dave's Rare Fish on Friday, they will be here Thursday. After an isolation period, and some healing on his part, I will add them to the tank. Unfortunately I don't have another tank to put him in so he will have to stay there. I am going to have to borrow a tank from my brother for the isolation of the females.

He seems to get better for a few days then here comes the scuff marks again. I will go get some melafix to help speed things up like you said.

I do take out the rocks and clean under them every time I do a water change/vacuum. I do have cyano in the tank but I remove as much as I can when I clean the tank.

Colby and I really appreciate everyones thoughts and input on the situation.

[PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn]

I would consider removing the carbon. IMO the constant use of activated carbon is not a good thing, there are anecdotal references by others claiming to link it to HITH. but the possibility of it removing trace elements from the water means I would prefer to use it for specific purposes only (medication removal (or phenol removal for soft corals))

clean water and the good diet should get him better.

[Lori Dixon]

All carbon has been removed, Melafix has been added. Also, bought some new food: seachem nutridiet - fish eggs. The females will be here Thursday, and it has been suggested on another site that I should remove either the rocks or the synos. We are still debating this idea but are afraid the females are going to need the hiding spots. What are your thoughts on this?

[PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn]

personally, I strongly doubt the synos are causing this.

if you remove them and/or the rocks I think you will stress him out and make it worse. I had spotted the that advise on MM, but fail to see how that would help.

obviously the females need to be quarantined before introducing, but think with 4 females, they should do pretty well. it is after all only 1 male, he cant harass them all the time (doubt he will, expect he'll be trying to flirt with all of them as soon as you bring them in the room)

[Lori Dixon]

Sounds like You, Colby and I all agree!!! Thanks for all you great advise and thoughts. Will keep you updated as the situation continues.

[Alex Calder]

Don't forget that salt can help stimulate mucous production as well.

[Lori Dixon]

Thanks Alex!!!

[PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn]

Don't forget that salt can help stimulate mucous production as well.

is that a good thing though. if a fish is doing well enough it will have sufficient mucus coating as it is, the use of salt and "beneficial treatment" (eg stress coat) all your doing its stressing the fish to make it create more.

there are uses for salt, and the treatment of parasites and detoxifying nitrite are good examples. but not sure I would add salt to increase the mucus coat, as theres no reason to think that this is the problem to begin with

[Alex Calder]

The mucous coat helps protect the exposed area from infection, thus my suggestion was meant to assist in preventing further/secondary infection. Two rounded tablespoons would likely suffice in that tank(hardly enough to stress a fish), and that is up to Colby and Lori.

I see two levels of damage in the picture scrapes and pitting. It is quite likely that all of the homeopathic solutions may not help in this instance. They may already be at a stage requiring direct antiseptic or antibiotics(nuclear warfare).

[PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn]

stressing was the wrong word, irritating is more what I meant.

but those sort of doses wont harm, at the very minimum might prevent some infections

but clean water is the most important thing

[Lori Dixon]

Well, he seems to be doing a lot better. I was worried for awhile, he seemed to get a little better then would look thrashed again. However, for almost a week now there has been nothing but improvement. He will definitely be scared from this experience, but I pretty sure he is finally going to pull through it. Before he started getting better it spread under his mouth and he seemed to have trouble eating anything besides flake, but he will now take his krill right out of my fingers just like he used to as long as it is small pieces.

[Colby Dixon]

It is still a slow healing process. Unfortunately there is going to be some bad scarring, including a hole that was scraped through the fish's opurculum. The smaller Syno's have been removed and replaced by an older S. decorus. The 4 females from Dave's are starting to fatten up and settle in. Not too much "flirting" going on yet. I found some more information on these fish that put them into the "cave" group of Aulonocara so we added more rocks to create more caves and hiding spaces.