# Treating bloat



## dreday (Oct 12, 2007)

I have been keeping cichlids for a the past 3 years now and want to branch out into tropheus. I read a lot about them but there seems to be conflicting info on how bloat occurs. To my knowledge bloat is a result of an internal hexamita infection in the gut. It can cause bloat or skinny disease and the external form is responsible for hole in the head or lateral line erosion.

Most of the articles relate bloat to poor food selection. I find that poor water quality or overfeeding causes most parasites and secondary infections to occur. I guess what i am asking is how is the food itself supposed to have caused bloat?

i know tropheus are mostly herbivores, but products such as wheat and soy are not natural parts of the fish's diet and probably are worse than feeding "meaty" foods like bloodworms and brine. I would never feed beefheart to them but have no problem trying a high protein diets which are derived from fish meal, fish oil, or marine sources. I will try some veggies treats but they break down and cloud up the water much faster than live foods or frozen foods.

what are some of the causes for bloat other than food have you heard of?

i will be treating any tropheus i get with metro flake regularly to help prevent bloat and other internal parasites.


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## 24Tropheus (Jun 21, 2006)

Huge subject. Wish I knew the answers. Poor water and stress from other Troph seems to be the main prob with one off bloat, but there seems to be some real nasty bugs from WC that even in good conditions can give the Troph bloat.
Theory is that although Troph eat huge amounts of algae and roughage in the wild this may not be the best stuff to give em in captivity esp small tanks. Get em on to easily digested quality fish foods but feed very little and they do fine, though go slow as this takes time unless already on this stuff. Once sure they are disease free (Importers and advanced guys treat em with quite a varriety of meds to get em clean) you can even try power feeding to get em to breed more.
For sure heathy disease free F1s can survive conditions and food that would kill a WC.
And some WC do not do well no matter what I try. Others just brease through quarentine.
I to have doughts about the use of wheat and soy in Tropheus foods, Prob is what do you use to provide the roughage they are naturaly used to? Not everyone has algae for em to graze on.

All the best James


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## zimmy (Aug 13, 2010)

dreday said:


> Most of the articles relate bloat to poor food selection. I find that poor water quality or overfeeding causes most parasites and secondary infections to occur. I guess what i am asking is how is the food itself supposed to have caused bloat?


The stress related to a change in diet is a contributing factor. Even if you feed tropheus a new food that is suitable based on their dietary needs, it can trigger bloat if a change is made suddenly.



> what are some of the causes for bloat other than food have you heard of?


Trophs do best with routine. Tied in with the point above is that any significant change can potentially trigger bloat.



> i will be treating any tropheus i get with metro flake regularly to help prevent bloat and other internal parasites.


I'm not sure if this is what you mean but I would advise against regularly medicating your fish in an attempt to prevent bloat. Metro is an antibiotic and using it repeatedly or for prolonged periods can promote drug resistant bacteria. Using metro prophylactically for one round of treatment when you first get your fish is a different story.


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## dreday (Oct 12, 2007)

Metro is an anti-parasitic and antibacterial but it only treats anaerobic bacteria. I agree that randomly treating your fish with antibiotics is detrimental for disease control but using a medicated flake or food once a month on is quite handy.

i keep quite a few victorians species now and use high quality food and i still see cases of skinny here and there. I do believe you are right zimmy that stress is another big cause. after they beat each other up or are constantly chasing each other they seemed to get skinny(could be a result of not eating due to being stressed out as well). either way it can lead the fish to being a target for a host of parasites. bacterial infections are usually secondary to parasitic ones.

I hope to get one large group of tropheus and another type of tang like the enantiopus. I will be trying to get some WC for the first time so i trying to cover my basis with preventative treatments. once i get them on a schedule and treated it should be fine.


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## GTZ (Apr 21, 2010)

We have an updated bloat article that explains a bit more in depth the possible causes or contributing factors which can lead to bloat.


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## nodima (Oct 3, 2002)

I am by no means an expert on bloat, but one thing I have come to accept around food causes, is that overfeeding is a cause. To explain, I had an issue with Bloat this past fall with some new Trophs, which I had fed with a high quality pellet food <brand>.

What was explained to me is that with herbivorous fish with long digestive tracts there was too much good stuff in the pellets and the fish can't digest it quickly enough, causing stress. I have since sharply reduced the amount of pellets, and supplemented them with a spirulina flake. The pellets simply are a lot denser than flakes or algae in the wild.

I had been feeding the Trophs a comparable amount of food that other similar sized Tangs would get. Since adjusting the food, I've not lost any and they are all growing and doing Troph stuff.


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## 24Tropheus (Jun 21, 2006)

GTZ said:


> We have an updated bloat article that explains a bit more in depth the possible causes or contributing factors which can lead to bloat.


Love the new improved article.
Dunno it might be further improved for UK guys by mentioning the Metro we can buy here and the dose needed. As far as I know the one licenced for sale here is Waterlife OCTOZIN (MYXAZIN for bacteria) for the others we have to get prescriptions or import ourselves.

Please correct me if there are others, I would love to hear of them, as Octozin is far from cheap.

All the best James


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## dreday (Oct 12, 2007)

good article. I liked the different options for treatment too.

I forgot to mention that i always have a bag of epsolm salt around as well. I found that to be most useful. I was just getting over excited with the metro since i found a source for metro flake. Better to stick with simple treatment and prevention steps.

Once i get my room reorganized and sell off some of my stock i will get some nice trophesu. WC or f1 depending on whats available. I cant WAIT!!! :dancing:


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