Michigan Cichlid Association
General Category => Old World => Topic started by: bmarine on July 07, 2013, 10:12:08 PM
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One of my jacobfreibergi has a curved in belly. Its been like this for a few days, but he seems to be swimming fine. Today I noticed though that he didn't eat when I fed him. Whats up with the guy? And what should I do with him?
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looks to be holding
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Almost looks to me like its a holding female. I don't know much though
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With that belly it's probably been holding for a week.
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I count all of my fish at feeding time so I know when someone is missing and knew when the females started holding within 12 hours . Never know you could have fry any time.
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I thought maybe it was too, but 1: i don't think its throat has gotten bigger, and 2: it is keeping its mouth pretty open, like my other fish, and it ate food, but spit it all out.
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It's the chin that kinda puffs out and as I understand It they may eat a tiny bit or none at all. Maybe she only has a few she's rolling around in there.
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Sometimes if you can look at them from below you can see in their chin little black beads
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looks like u should remove her to a dif tank to let her spit on her own or u can strip her and put her back in the home tank
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How's the poop?
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How's the poop?
poop?? what on your mind..lol
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If the rest of the fish are fine move it to a QT. It looks like a very young fish. First thing that came to mind was a holding female. But my girls keep their lips closed, have fat chins and you can see the eggs in there and the ladies roll them around in their mouth. Could be a lot of things. Stress from being chased, bad water. I'm sure someone with more knowledge will come along.
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They're wondering if the poop is normal, if it's clear/white and thready it could be bloat, but to me it looks like a female that just laid eggs. If they've only got a few eggs (common in the first few spawns) her mouth won't look swollen right away. Also, holding females in my experience will make every effort to eat except to actually eat...
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They're wondering if the poop is normal, if it's clear/white and thready it could be bloat, but to me it looks like a female that just laid eggs. If they've only got a few eggs (common in the first few spawns) her mouth won't look swollen right away. Also, holding females in my experience will make every effort to eat except to actually eat...
Very true my girls come out at feeding time and look at me and look at the food and just sit there lol
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looks like u should remove her to a dif tank to let her spit on her own or u can strip her and put her back in the home tank
If he doesn't even know if its a female holding, he must not have much knowledge in stripping. As little as this is and with no experience I would t recommend it as it could be very easily damaged for life
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looks like u should remove her to a dif tank to let her spit on her own or u can strip her and put her back in the home tank
If he doesn't even know if its a female holding, he must not have much knowledge in stripping. As little as this is and with no experience I would t recommend it as it could be very easily damaged for life
yep
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Well actually, i have bred a decent amount of cichlids, and I do know how to strip, except I don't really do it. And i guess its possible that she's holding, except she seems to be opening and closing her mouth regularly and doesn't seem to be juggling any eggs. I felt like when all my other fish had fry, their throats got a lot larger and they had their mouth almost completely shut all the time, and I'm just not seeing that a whole ton with this. Is there any other possible reason her stomach is like this?
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that's why I asked what the poop looked like
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I have fish with a concave belly and every thing points to a parasite. My fish have white stringy poop though. They were in bad water conditions IMO over crowded and fed a poor diet when I got them. If the fish is putting food in it's mouth try a different food.
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Gotcha. I actually havent seen any poop yet. I'll try to keep an eye out then. And try some other foods
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Well it turns out his poop is white and stringy. What should I do?
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Well it turns out his poop is white and stringy. What should I do?
I use prazipro for internal parasite
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Well it turns out his poop is white and stringy. What should I do?
I use prazipro for internal parasite
Per another site, "Praziquantel is a dewormer primarily, whereas metronidazole is a rather broad protozoacide." This concurs with some other research I've done.
It's a hard balance between being sure what disease your fish has vs. treating too soon with the wrong thing, also between the sentimental and monetary value of the fish vs. cost of meds.
I made a mistake on this a while back treating for ich when it was really a fungus, and the treatments were opposite (high heat vs. lower the temp, plus which meds), so I lost most of a tank of fish.
If at all possible, as suggested earlier move the sick fish into a separate tank and treat in there so you don't waste medicine or stress out the other fish. That way if your diagnosis was wrong you only lose one fish instead of all of them.
Hope it all turns out OK.
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Excellent advice Linux. Fish have great immune systems so you need to look at what occurred over the last month. How is your water perimeters? Is the tank over stocked? Did you introduce new fish to the tank? As I understand it fish all carry something icky, it's when their immune systems are lowered that things get crazy.
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Great, thanks! Yeah he's a new fish, got him about a week and a half ago. I'll hospitalize him now and let you know what happens!
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Just an FYI parasites are transferred by him pooping and your other fish putting it in their mouths. This white stringy poop floats around and doesn't drop to the bottom like healthy poo.
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Hmm ok. Second question. One of my other jacobfreibergi seems a little bloated. Should i hospitalize and treat him too?
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These guys need a high protein diet. What do you feed them? The brown/grey that you posted a photo of appears to be female. Bloat would be caused by something different than what's going on with your caved belly girl.
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He actually looks decent now, and i feed them a mix of Dainichi Color Supreme and Spirulina algae flakes. Here is the guaranteed analysis to show the protein:
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Maybe he just over ate ;) I'm not an expert, just looked them up. I believe spiruluna is a type of algae. Maybe someone else could give a recommendation on food. What I read is they eat a lot of like meaty type stuff... Crustaceans, insect larvae and the like. Says they need a meatier diet than a traditional mbuna diet.
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He actually looks decent now, and i feed them a mix of Dainichi Color Supreme and Spirulina algae flakes. Here is the guaranteed analysis to show the protein:
That protein content is what a traditional mbuna eats. Probably fine, but I would think you will want to be adding some frozen food. Hopefully someone who has that species can give some suggestions
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Gotcha. It says on the Dainichi bag that there is krill mixed in it too! But hope someone can give a recommendation for food!
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Copied from another site: Aulonocara are specialised zooplankton feeders, feeding on insect larvae and crustaceans in the wild. They therefore require a higher protein diet than you would ever dream of giving to Mbuna. I recommend feeding these fish the European Shrimp Mix, which is cheaper than commercially prepared fish foods and just as nutritious