Lost a yellow lab

[Steve]

I lost a yellow lab today. I noticed he had stopped eating about a week ago and for the last few days he had what looked like a bulged thought. I thought maybe it was a female holding at first but after closer inspection a couple days ago I noticed the mouth was empty and it was breathing harder. I moved him to a quarantine/hospital tank yesterday and started metro/salt just to get something going till I could figure out what was wrong with him. Now just a bit ago I went to check on him and he must have died early this morning from the looks of it.

After briefly looking him over I noticed the bulged throat actually felt somewhat hard/solid. Could he has developed a tumor or something maybe? if so would it have come on so fast? (1 weeks time)

Just trying to figure out what happened to him. I'm keeping an eye on the rest of the tank he was in but they seems fine.

[Ron]

Sorry to hear. I saw your earlier thread, but I didn't really have any good input on the situation. I've experienced it only a few times myself and IIRC in all cases they didn't persist for long. 

[Steve]

The weird thing is Ron this one isn't even the one lab I was worried about. The one I posted a pic of a week or so ago is still doing really good. Belly still is swollen but it eats just fine and has no other problems. I'm startin to think that maybe it's just fat lol. This one I just lost I kind'a had a feeling I would end up losing since it stopped eating. I tried to do a lot of looking online last night as to what it may be (was up reading till 4am tryin to find something ) and pretty much everything said once they stop eating that's not an easy road to come back from so I kind'a knew my efforts to save him were probably in vain, but I had to at least try.

[Regalblue]

Maybe similar to duckmouth in flowerhorns?

[GrizzlysDad]

You know Steve I hate to suggest this but, what if some of these deaths could be attributed to the chemicals that you use in your elaborate, yet amazing, backgrounds?

[Steve]

I don't think that is the cause though because my Peacock tank uses the exact same stuff in the backgrounds and has been up and running longer than this tank and I haven't had any probs at all with them. They are all healthy as horses in that tank.

There is one difference between the two tanks and it is the one thing which I am starting to wonder/kick myself for because I am starting to think this may be a self created issues. The peacock tank all 12 fish came from the same place and stocked at the same time. The Mbuna tank was stocked over a 2 week period, with fish from 3 different LFS and I hate to say it but none of them were quarantined before I introduced them into the tank.

[mightieskeeper]

Steve I think you found the problem.  I would treat the tank to make sure it is clean of parasites. Better safe than sorry.

[Regalblue]

Have you looked into my duckmouth theory?   

[Steve]

Have you looked into my duckmouth theory?

Actually I haven't yet, mainly because I came down with the flu a few days ago and spent the last 2-3 days in a pretty much horizontal position praying for sweet death lol I will google it and read about it and see if it looks like what he had though because I actually am not familiar with it.

[Regalblue]

It sounds like duckmouth, only the throat cavity is what stiffened up.