# Sunken belly and no poop?????



## cyc949 (Jun 24, 2007)

Awhile back my wild Cynotilapia Afra Red Top Likoma got beat up pretty bad. Once i noticed him injured i pulled him from the main tank and moved him into quarentine. There I treated him with Melafix for two complete regimins and he recovered...for the most part. His scales were still a little damaged but his color and personality came back so i figured he was better. This time i put him into a smaller tank with 6 younger and much smaller fish. He has now assumed the alpha role in the tank showing full barring and mask and very bright color 90% of the time.

One thing i have noticed however is that his stomach looks sunken and he seems a little thin (his cheeks and forehead are also a little sunken in). He eats eagerly at all feedings and is always very excited and energetic when i walk up to the tank. His attitude points to fine but he could be a little fatter.

One other issue is that i never see this fish poop. I feed it a diet of New Life Specrum, Spirulina flakes, and veggie flakes, varying the three regularly and feeding once a day to once every other day at times. All my other cichlids get the same foods and amounts and go fine but he doesnt go at all (or at least not in front of me) even if i spend 2 straight hours watching the tank. Wondering if this is normal or if there is something i should be doing differently to get him more regular.

For awhile i thought he might have some sort of internal or external parasite since his belly was so sunken and since i would see him twitch a little after feeding sometimes so i treated the whole tank with jungle parasite clear. Since then no more twitching but still the semi sunken belly and face and no visible pooping!

Please help me. I have saved this fish from almost certain death and i have grown quite fond of him. Im about to get him a couple wild females to play with but i want to make sure hes in top shape before i start breeding him. Any ideas, advice, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. :thumb:


----------



## cichlidaholic (Dec 7, 2005)

One round of treatment isn't always enough with internal parasites.

The problem is, he's been in a couple of tanks now, and all of them need treating in order to make sure you get this cleared up. (You can feed medicated food to the ones that are eating rather than treat the water column.)

One thing that concerns me is the emaciation you describe...It sounds more like "wasting" disease or fish tuberculosis, and you can't do much about that.


----------



## cyc949 (Jun 24, 2007)

Thanks for the reply. 

Do you think is sounds more like an internal parasite or like the wasting disease? Is the latter contageous? Havent heard much about that one. :-?

Since yesterday i moved him to a 10 gallon hospital tank by himself. Figured id be able to get a better view of whats goin on without rocks or substrate in the way. Anyways, i fed him right off and he ate all kinds! Then sure enough within 20 minutes he pooped and it looked totally normal, both in color and consistency. That made me think. The tank he was just in had a few other fish that were alot smaller then him. I was going easy on the feeding of that tank because most of the fish were small and i didnt wanna overfeed them and have a case of bloat break out. I figured better to error on the side of caution. Maybe the bigger Afra just wasnt able to get enough food with all the skimpy feedings. Do you think this could be a possibility?

Also i mentioned before he was twitching a little from time to time. Well right before i moved him, i did a waterchange in the group tank so that i could use some of his cultured water in the hospital tank to jumpstart it cycling. As i added the new water i noticed the twitching again. None of the other fish were twitching but they are all tank raised. He is a wildcaught so im wondering if the freshly prepared water has more of a noticible effect on him. Maybe the conditioner hadnt fully mixed in before i added the new water to the tank. Ever seen twitching with wildcaught fish right after a water change?

I have to admit, im a little embarrassed to ask some of these questions. *** had cichlids, mbuna in particular, for awhile now (4+ years) and thought id seen most of what there was to see. I guess you learn something new every day!


----------



## cichlidaholic (Dec 7, 2005)

Yes, you do learn something new every day! :thumb:

I would go ahead and treat one more time for bloat. If you don't see any improvements after that, you either have a fish who is just failing to thrive, or he has something else going on.

Without a veterinarian, there's no way to know for sure!

Yes, water changes can affect them. Are you using a good dechlorinator?

(Transfering water from one tank to another doesn't do much, but if you can move a piece of filter media from the established filter system, that will help!)


----------



## cyc949 (Jun 24, 2007)

Thats exactly what i did! Threw some metro in with him per directions and added some good aeration. He seems to be doing fine so far so i guess well see.

Another reason i originally transfered water was so temp and quality would be same as his regular tank. Figured that would minimize the shock on him. I always do this and it seems to work well for me. Any negative effects you can think of?

As for the filter media, heres a trick *** always used with great success: Long time ago, i went to the store and purchased a bunch of bags of bio beads for the smallest Aquaclear filter size. Chose them because they come in little bags that can easily fit somewhere in most filters. I then put one bag into each of my main tanks filters. There they sit collecting plenty of bacteria till they are needed. When a fish from any tank gets sick, i just take the little bag from that filter and place it directly into the clean hospital tanks filter. BAM!...Instantly cycled! If any of my main tanks ever come down with something contageous like ick, i just treat the entire tank so potential disease transfer doesnt really come into play using this method. Least it hasnt so far. :wink:

For dechlorinator, *** always used a combo of API Water Conditioner and API Stress Coat. These are the same two products *** used since day one and *** never had any issues. *** also used Prime from time to time with no noticible differences in the result. Im a firm believer in the "if it aint broke, dont fix it" motto and so i just stick with API products whenever possible.

Anyways thanks so much for the advice and ill definately let ya know what happens! Maybe ill even post some before and after shots when all is said and done!


----------



## cichlidaholic (Dec 7, 2005)

No negative side effects to transfering water, as far as I know. I do it myself when I start a new tank, but I also transfer established filter media.

The bio beads are a great idea. I usually just cut off a piece of sponge from my AC filters.

You're good on the dechlorinator, too. I prefer Prime, but just because it seems to go further economically speaking AND does the trick!


----------

