Help! Horrible injury on Pangasius! What is going on?

Just walked up to the tank and noticed that my Pangasius seems to have somehow torn out what appears to be a portion of his throat :weird: There's tissue hanging from it still and there's a fair amount of blood around the site. I have no idea how this could have happened - it's either a bite from someone else in the tank (bichirs, maybe? But doubt it, they've always been really peaceful unless something actually fits in their mouth), or he hurt himself somehow. Maybe the deboned hake fillets I was feeding last night had a small bone or two and the pangasius managed to get one lodged in his throat, then injured himself trying to dislodge it. I have no idea, since fed them at around 4am and went to bed soon after. Otherwise maybe something freaked him out and he darted off and got stuck on the piece of driftwood somehow. It looks pretty bad and I am not sure if/how to treat it. I'm guessing just watch for signs of fungus and treat symptomatically. Got no hospital tank though :/ I'm attaching some stills from a video I took (couldn't get photos - he's too quick), and a link to the video itself. The nick in his anal fin is unrelated and I think happened during the move on Sunday.







Video:

The pangasius is small still, around the 12cm mark. I included a few seconds of footage of the bichirs as well (as usual hiding under the driftwood), so you can decide if maybe one of them (would have been the saddled bichir, I think) would have bitten the pangasius cat.

280L Boyu HX-1000Built-in trickle filter @ 900L/h
Internal SunSun canister filter @ 800L/h- 2x clown loaches
-1x african knife fish
-2x plecostomus
-2x reedfish
-1x saddled bichir
-3x senegal's bichir
-1x Pangasius Catfish
-2x tinfoil barb
-1x Red tailed Shark

 

Looks like one of the bichir's tried to get a hold of him. Believe me they can take out a 12cm pangasius. My three platinum polypterus have taken out hi fin pangasius cats and even loaches that i was sure were too big for them. Its that or the knife fish. Do not under estimate the bichirs. I dont personally consider them aggressive, but they are predators and very efficient night hunters.

 

@mydummyname - Damn. Those fish have lived together for months though. Saddled bichir has grown a lot recently and kind of went off her food since the move so maybe she got hungry last night and tried to grab the pangasius while it was sleeping? Do they have the sort of teeth that could inflict a wound of that size though? I would imagine that they have the sort of teeth that a platanna has, almost like the rasps on a cat's tongue.

 

I cant imagine they have teeth. I've seen them open their mouths often enough to be convinced they dont have. But if it got a grip on the pangasius' throat and the pangasius wrestled itself free after a long while then that type of damage can be caused. I do know that a bichir does not easily let go of a prey once its in its mouth. Pangasius cats are Also nocturnal so this may explain why its escaped for so long, but the bichir is the king of the tank at night and it would eventually get him. I'm surprised your rainbow / red tail shark is still alive actually.

 

Oh, apparently I was wrong, and this is what a bichir skull+teeth looks like. Think perhaps we have our culprit...

 

Hmmm now we know why they are so lethal! Nice find by the way. Pity about the pangasius' do you think he'll make it?

 

It could very well be the bichir. As they grow they will attack anything. I had a bichir that bit a tinfoil almost double it's size. The tinfoil went psycho and managed to escape with a few missing scales.

But in my experience if the bichir is well fed then it's less aggressive towards other fish.

 

@mxz - yeah, I've never had any issues with bichirs before, but like I said earlier, my saddled bichir has gone off food since I moved the tank on Sunday, and still isn't interested (just tried feeding lancefish now). All the others are eating happily, but not the saddled bichir =.=

 

@mydummyname - I hope so. Hard to tell at this point, though he's still active and eating Tetra Prima. I always wanted to rehome the guy actually (I never wanted him to begin with, because he's potentially a 4-6 footer), so if he makes it I think I'll start looking for a home.

 

Perhaps I should remove the red tail shark... Bichir has been in there since she was smaller than him. I've only had her for 6 or 7 months but she has grown almost as much as the tinfoil barbs.

 

Look like he got hooked up on something, mine got hooked up on some driftwood but don't worry they heal up amazingly fast I added some Daro stop Fungus (works for more than just fungus and fin& tail rot) just a pity you are so far away otherwise I would have taken him of your hands

 

@Willem - yeah, either that or a bichir bite :/ So far he/she is still active and eating and is not showing signs of distress at all. I can't add any kind of medication at the moment because I don't want to medicate the whole tank, especially with the clown loaches in there.

 

At the risk of sounding repetitive - chuck in a couple of Rooibos teabags

 

@Jenn - Good idea, thanks

 

i dont think the red-tail shark will last long in the tank, unless he is close to full adult size, i.e about 13cm and even then its no guarantee that they wont attempt to eat him, the general rule is that if a fish can fit into another's mouth, its considered food, however, sometimes the big fish dont like to follow the rules and will try to eat a fish that is obviously too big for it, and the smaller fish ends up getting killed for nothing as the predator just cannot get his meal into his mouth... so you will have to see if youre willing to take the chance.. (its also possible that he has a very good hiding spot that he uses at night that the bichirs just cannot get into)

i think its not for no reason that some fish are referred to as monster fish.. i know i've found out the hard way that sometimes fish seem to do well together for a long while, but as they get older, territories start to get set and instincts start to kick in, then we find out why they are in fact not suitable tank mates, unfortunately by the time we realise it, we've probaly already lost some dearly loved fish... (and money of course)

i think only once you've started to lose fish you become painstakingly careful about which fish you put together even tho your heart aches to have that one other fish in the tank, you realise its just not gonna work and its only gonna cost a fish its life..

thats normally when you decide to go crazy with mts, or some form of reason sets in (this normally after a long long time) and you realise that you have to decide what type of a tank you want.. i think its reasonable to say that many many aquarists eventually settle on a compromise of either one or 2 tanks at most (probably after having 3 or 4 or 5 or more tanks running at some point previously)

 

@mydummyname - The RTS is rather large, but at the rate the Saddled Bichir is growing, I will probably have to to move him, especially since the Saddled is still refusing food. :| The Senegal Bichirs are incredibly peaceful, and I have had them in that tank with much smaller fish, like cories and synodontis petricola cats, and they don't bother anything. The Saddled Bichir, however, is a different story. She started off at maybe the 10cm mark late last year, and even then would attempt to swallow anything that fitted in her mouth, starting with the cories. I shouldn't have kept them together to start with, but I thought she was too small to bother them, and that the cories were too well armoured. So the cories went out, after she'd killed a few. Then she grew to the point where I kept finding my two Synodontis Petricola stuck headfirst in her mouth. After a few rescues, I realised it was only going to get worse, so moved the Petricola to my 63L, and they're very happy - the one looks totally gravid but the conditions aren't right for them to spawn.

At this point I'm just not sure where to put the RTS, as I don't have a suitably sized tank for him. I had no idea that saddled bichirs grow this fast! The Senegal's seem to grow much slower, but I guess they grow in proportion to their adult sizes, and teh Saddled Bichir grows a whole lot larger. I had thought that the shark would be too big for her for a LONG time still. The bichir is my favourite fish in that tank though, along with my clowns.

 

@Zeiphex, from what i've seen the senegals do also grow reasonably fast, altho a lot depends on what they eat, more live food = faster growth, and with the saddled being moderately more aggressive than the more peaceful senegals, she's probably had the lion's share of the food, and of course the live "food" you've conveniently left in the tank for her, lol or at least i'm sure she's convinced you've left all these lovely little fishies in there for her meals, so she'd grow quicker in any event the way i see it.

sometimes its just an individual fish tho that has a more "hunter" tendency too... but anyway, all of the best with the tank and keep us updated with the state of the pangasius too..