# Jack Dempsey with Swollen Stomach.



## PaulaD (Jan 30, 2011)

Wonder if anyone can help me i have a Jack Dempsey who is about 2 years old and about 6" long he has been off his food for about a week and has had a very swollen stomach, he just goes and hides when it's feeding time up till today when i noticed he was on his side at the top of the tank and then hid in a corner of the tank between the rocks and the glass, his stomach looks massive and like it is about to pop he seems to have problems with swimming but he seems very strong still, he is no resting in a cave, he and my Texas Cichlid had sort of paired up and have dug all the stones out from behind the wood to make a den which they both sit in, the Texas is standing guard of where he is now We had a 10 hour power cut about a week and a half ago where i used a foot pump to put some air into the tank we lost 2 fish because of that not sure if that has anything to do with Jack!

The tank is 150 litres it has been set up for about 8 months i do a 25% water change ever week or so and he shares it with the Texas, a large Plec, 2 Firemouth Cichlids, a parrot fish and a Oscar and some clown Loaches

The water temperature is 25.1 c , I only have the dip strips so will read what they say but can get the fish shop to test it tomorrow if you think it would help more

GH - 180, KH -180 , PH - 6.5, NO2 - 0, NO3- 200

I feed them on Cichlid pellets, shelled peas, i use Aquasafe on the new water when i do water changes

Not sure if i have covered everything, if you need anything else just let me know...

Thanks in advance for reading this i hope i can help Jack as i will really miss him!

I did read about Clout and giving him a salt bath with Epsom salts, would this help and how do i do this i have never had to do that before? and should i remove him from the tank to treat him?

Thanks again


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## wheatbackdigger (May 11, 2008)

Your tank is a distaster waiting to happen. Very unhealthy tank and I am surprised it took this long to go downhill. Your nitrates are off the chart, your tank is only about 40 US gallon, the tank is so overstocked and way to small for these fish, coupled with the inadequate water changes, you have sick and dieing fish. In these conditions, I doubt there is much you can do. You need a way bigger tank or you need to start donating fish. I am sure its not what you want to hear. Clean water and adequate diet equals healthy fish (and of course a properly stocked tank).


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## PaulaD (Jan 30, 2011)

Thanks for your reply, this morning he is swimming about again which i didnt expect him to be doing! His mate the Texas Cichlid is looking after him.
I will do a 50% water change and add the epsom salt see how he goes with that

I am looking at a 6ft tank on wednesday as it goes, it was always a temp tank while i had my living room sorted out so i can have a bigger tank so they will be in one very soon, i was given Jack as it was being bullied in someone elses tank.

I will do 50% water changes weekly now until the tank is set up and i am running 2 big filters over filtering the water so am hoping that will help till the move,

What can i do to lower the nitrates?

Thanks again for the advice i will let you know how he goes


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## c333davis (Apr 2, 2010)

Not sure if this is still an active issue... How's your JD, PaulaD?

You may've learned this already: your water changes will lower your nitrates. I believe you should try to keep them between 20-40ppm. Get a liquid test kit for more accurate testing than you get with strips.

You can best keep the nitrates under control by not overfeeding and by having fewer fish in that small of a tank.


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## Chekboy2 (Feb 5, 2011)

Instead of doing 50 percent water changes once a week, try doing 30 percent twice a week.


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