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I have what we have decided is a synodontis catfish which i am temporarily fostering. I dont have any room in my tank nor do I have an extra tank. I set up the cat with water from its old tank plus a little from my tank plus a little new water, with some gravel and a rock and plant from my tank. I also put in a heater. this is in a big plastic tub.

and then i realized: I HAVE NO AIRSTONE! is there ANYTHING i can do to assist aeration? he was looking chipper for a while but now he come up to the surface looking desparate once in a while. he even swam upside down once! I dont want the poor fishy to suffocate! i've agitated the water by hand a couple times and that seems to help temporarily but I am still VERY concerned.

could the water becoming too warm affect the aeration at all? because along with his strange behavior i think the heater might have been a little much for a little while so i took it out.

help me

edit: I have a 10 gallon tank that is overstocked right now because i am also holding on to 4 harlequin rasboras for the night, my 10 now has 1 cory, 4 swordtails, 4 rasboras, 3 cardinals and a little tiny gourami. so there is definitely NO way this cat will fit in there right?

[span class="edited"][Edited by devon7 2004-09-04 02:09][/span]

First of all, relax Racso and I recently had to take one of his African cichlids to a fish store because it was getting too aggressive. It killed a tank mate actually Anyway, we had to keep it in a bucket for a couple days, but we didn't have an extra air stone. Just stir the water for about 45-60 secs a few times throughout the day. The cat may lose his color a bit, but once he's in the store he'll calm down and be ok

]<]Dani<]<

hmm then why is he swimming sideways and floating about and looking generally unhappy?

It is normal for Synodontis species to swim in inverted or sideways positions. In fact, the common name for the family is the "upside-down cats".

As long as it looks like he is intentionally doing it, he is fine.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Synos commonly swim upside down or sideways, very cool fish they are. They will be nhappy as they usually like friends unless they are the bigger cats like the Featherfin. They usually look unhappy anyway if you ask me. Have you given it a nice cave as they are nocturnal?

I did have his container half-covered and i turned the lights near him off...

Unfortunately the little guy didn't make it

he was quite old though, my friend has had that fish since she got the tank which was quite a while before i met her (i've know her for 11 years!)

he was also very stressed out seeing as he had never left his tank before.

still so sad to see such a large beautiful fish die though (or any fish for that matter)

That is a very sad way to go after living for 11 years...

Did you do any water changes in the bucket? Catfish are big waste producers, so when being kept in a bucket like that they need fairly frequent water changes.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

yes i did change the water

It might just have been too much new water, the stress of the move and being as old as you have said, it just couldn`t handle it all.

hmmm i did it very slowly though, mixed and removed small amounts. I'm pretty sure it was because of little aeration and heat fluctuations

I keep a LifeAir50, battery air pump, on hand for emergencies, winter power outages, etc. Got mine from http://www.aquaticsbykr.com. Sorry you lost him but it wasn't your fault. He lived a full happy life.

[span class="edited"][Edited by June 2004-09-05 15:28][/span]

If he lived for over 10 yrs thas very good anyway and I suspect he was getting near his death in the next few years anyway