# Rapid breathing, red gills and not eating



## peanutty (Aug 15, 2011)

Hello, we have 11 cichlids in our 125 gallon tank. We recently purchased 8 of these from the fish store and noticed that one of them hasn't been eating in the past week. All of our fish are african cichlids.

The fish is blue in color with stripes and looks a bit deformed around the mouth. The chin looks like it is sagging a bit. I see rapid breathing and no eating whatsoever. The gills look red. Our water values are fine so I'm assuming this is something that happened prior to us purchasing him or her.

Is there anything we can do to save this fish?

Thanks.


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## GTZ (Apr 21, 2010)

Any chance of a picture? You can upload here and copy/paste the BBCode (message board/forum) code in your reply here.
Also, do you know what species you have?
How long has the tank been up and running and finally what are the water parameters? One persons idea of ok water parameters may not be the same as ideal.


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## peanutty (Aug 15, 2011)

Ammonia and Nitrite are showing up as zero. PH is 7.9. The tank has been set up for 3 weeks now. The fish looks like the fish in your picture. I will try to post a picture.


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## GTZ (Apr 21, 2010)

What did you use to cycle the tank and what are you using to test the water parameters? Is there a nitrate test?
Are you using dechlorinator when performing a water change, also, if you have done a water change, how long ago and how much.


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## peanutty (Aug 15, 2011)

We are using a test kit that has several bottles in it. We have a nitrate bottle but haven't tested that. We noticed the one fish like this since we bought it. The rest of the fish are fine.

My husband used fish food and placed several of the items from the smaller tank that had the good bacteria on it to cycle the tank. He was testing the water levels every other day for 3 weeks straight and continued to test the water levels once we transferred our own fish over and then again once we purchased 6 other fish. He has been doing water changes twice a week and also uses a dechlorinator.

Here is a picture of the fish in question. It still is not eating. Some of the pictures are not as clear as I would have liked.


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## GTZ (Apr 21, 2010)

Your fish appears to be holding young fry. Not eating is normal. Also, when holding a large amount of eggs as this fish appears to be, sometimes the gills can stick out a bit, showing a bit more color than would normally appear.
If you're looking for more info, take a look at the breeding section in the library.
Let us know if there are any changes in it's behavior. Apart from that, prepare for some babies


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## peanutty (Aug 15, 2011)

Thank you so much! I am hoping you are right. I have been worrying about this fish so much. The gills are quite red so I was assuming the worst. I saw the rapid breathing too and I thought that it didn't look good.

How do I tell who is male and who is female in the tank? I just don't want them to crossbreed.

I should probably try to get pictures of all of them and post them here to see if someone can tell me. They are all from Lake Malawi.

We have 4 yellows
3 blue fish with yellow tails
3 blue fish with darker blue stripes
1 orange fish - I think a red zebra - We need to find the male version of this

Thanks again.


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## GTZ (Apr 21, 2010)

Determining Your Cichlids Gender.
Set aside some time to do some reading, as mentioned in my post above, go through the relevant articles in the breeding section, it will explain what's happening with your fish. I also suggest the Rift Lake Setup article.
I should also mention that if you don't have another tank for the holding female, or at the very least a breeding net, when she spits out the fry, the other fish will eat them.


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