Foot still not attached 7+ months Haddoni Need thoughts and recommendations. Thanks!

[Tango451]

I have had him about 7+ months now (could be slightly more or less). He has never buried his foot, and never attached in the aquarium for more than a few hours, mostly though a few minutes.

I have tried large pvc, digging a hole, placing foot against glass, smooth rock on top of foot, surround by rock, lowered flow for a few weeks, hold anemone to attach to larger rock to help get into sand, placed coffee mug in front of anemone to press against large rock, glass bowl for foot- all failed. (Cut off flow for at least 15 minutes per attempt). He will attach to the object and then move or fall off. :facepalm:

He is eating normal (extremely strong feeding/ grabbing response), responsive, looks perfect except when I stress him by trying to help with attaching (will attempt about once every 2 to 4 weeks) - his mouth will inflate. I found him upside down on top of my red haddoni (oral disc to oral disc) so I decided to try to help him bury his foot again, but did not work.

All params are good. All lighting is good. All other haddonis' foot buried.

His foot attached in qt. There are no rips or tears whatsoever, and he can attach but just for a short amount of time.

I know I posted about this before, but maybe someone has something I can try that has not been mentioned.

I am concerned for its health and longevity. Minus the foot attaching issue, he would be perfectly healthy, but I have not experienced a healthy haddoni not attaching/ burrying before

 

[Daniel62]

Haddoni who will not bury their foot are sick. They can look ok, but trust me they are sick.

 

[Tango451]

Haddoni who will not bury their foot are sick. They can look ok, but trust me they are sick.

I do not think he is sick. He went through 2 rounds of antibiotics (Septra and cipro) no deflation and was qt'd for 1.5+ months after finishing treatment before going in aquarium with only established carpets

If the consensus is he sick (want to hear what others have to say) I will pull him out and treat again but I really don't think he is

 

[Daniel62]

So does he maybe have a injury to his foot that you can not see. So here is my floating haddoni story. I have 6 haddoni in my tank, one day my purple who I have had for about a year, Decided to move. He would not stay still. The other haddoni where fine. But he would just keep floating around. He also did not look to be inflating, would also eat, and yet he did not like anywhere in the tank. This tank has been set up for almost 8 years. It is A haddoni tank, everything else has to live with them. I qt all my haddoni once I learned what the problem was. So as a last resort I treated my Whole tank with cipro. I had done this once before when I 1st learned about the problem about the infections these guys can have. Had 8 haddoni at the time lost 2. After the 7 day treatment, the purple put his foot down and has not moved. That has been about 6 months now. Maybe he got some bad food, or maybe there was something in the tank, that just affected him. All I can say is that after the treatment he went back to being fine. good luck

 

[Tango451]

I'm really tempted to pull him out and treat. i too have a tank dedicated to only haddoni. Thank you for your time and responses, I really appreciate them.

The only reason I am apprehensive is that he went through two rounds of antibiotics and then qt'd for quite a while where his foot was firmly attached the whole time. From the second he was added to the aquarium, he never attached permanently or buried his foot at all. So he never truly detached.
This was a tank transfer addition and he was the first carpet to go in and was the only carpet for 3 weeks when my others slowly were added. All that were added were 1+ year to 10+ years old and treated and qt'd at one point

As for food, they are all fed the same. Fresh salmon that I freeze, so each feeding they would have a cut from the same piece.

I'm just worried if I did pull him and treat, I would stress him out for no reason, but at the same time I know this isn't normal. He's also very large so that doesn't help.

***And if I were to treat, which antibiotic would everyone recommend as this would be an unusual case. Cipro or Septra? (I'm leaning towards cipro since it's less hard on the animal, but have also heard Septra is better for haddoni)

 

[Dkuhlmann]

How deep is your sandbed? From what I've heard and read they prefer a very deep sandbed. MIN 3-4" 5-6 would be better .

 

[Tango451]

How deep is your sandbed? From what I've heard and read they prefer a very deep sandbed. MIN 3-4" 5-6 would be better .

4-4.5"

I even bought an extra 20lbs to put around him at one point where it was easily 5" in that one spot

 

[dieselkeeper]

I stuck the foot side down in a coffee mug. So far it is working.