# Think I have a yellow lab with bloat?



## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

but I am not sure. I've read the articles, and have been searching around the forums, but I haven't been able to find anything definitive.

What I noticed was one of my yellow labs looking, well, bloated. At one point it did have some white stringy poo hanging off of it, but I don't know if I call that definitive either because I've seen a bunch of the fish having white stringy poo hanging off of them from time to time. Seems like it first comes out brown, but if it doesn't fall off right away it turns white?

Anyways, aside from being bloated and the potential white stringy poo, it doesn't seem to be displaying any other symptoms. I noticed after I fed this afternoon, so I'm not sure if I want to feed again later to see if it is hungry or not. I did toss in a couple pellets a few minutes ago just to see and the bloated lab was out and seemed to be ready to eat, but didn't manage to get any pellets (I only put in a few, and the aceis got to them quickly). None of my other fish appear to be overly chubby or overfed. The bloated fish doesn't seem to hide any more than the others, nor seem lethargic. I keep my nitrates under 20ppm, do 50% water changes a week, vac the sand regularly, rinse out the filters every week. I don't witness any aggression between tank mates, don't have any nipped fins. A few weeks ago, the dominant male lab was chasing a female around the tank quite a bit and the female was hiding up in the corner of the tank by the filter intake - this went on for a couple days, and then for the last few weeks everyone has been back to normal. I don't know if this was the female that was being chased or not. I can't really pinpoint any source of stress in the tank. Currently I feed twice a day. I feel like I'm feeding a lot, but they eat up everything in less than 30 seconds.

I'm now wondering what I should do. Is this Bloat? Is this an early sign or a late sign? What could be the cause? Should I treat? If I treat, should I treat my whole tank or should I remove the individual fish and treat separately? If I treat separately, my only option is a 10g tank with an uncycled powerhead sponge filter - ok to do? Can I get away with not treating if I reduce feeding to once per day and only half of what I feed at a time? If it is bloat, will the rest of the fish remain healthy or can it spread to other fish? (ok, so I've read it usually does spread to other fish but I'm wondering why it would if none of the other fish are stressed for any reason?) This may sound cold but I have no emotional attachment to this particular yellow lab and while I don't want to watch my fish die, it wouldn't bother me too much if this one didn't make it - but what I don't want is to see bloat spread through my tank killing fish. ugh, this is frustrating...

Here's a couple pics of the little guy/girl. You can see the bloated belly pretty clearly. He even looks bloated width wise from the front.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

OK, after worrying about this all day, I think this is what I'm goign to do:

Today is water change day, so I'll remove rocks and catch the bloated fish. The fish will go in the 10g tank with the uncycled powerhead sponge filter. I plan on finding some Metronidazole medicine and soaking some food to feed the rest of the 55g inhabitants to hopefully prevent the spread of the disease to other fish. I'll treat the water in the 10g with the bloated fish with either Met or clout if I can find it - not planning on feeding it for a couple days, as it will likely be too uncomfortable in the 10g tank alone to eat anyways. Sound like a good plan?

Questions:

What is the process for treating the 55g tank with met soaked food? Do I use enough medicine to treat the whole 55g of water, or do I use a smaller amount since I'm not trying to treat the water, but get it soaked into the food?

Is there any worry of harming my bio filtration in the 55g tank?

How bad will the blue stains be if using clout in the hospital tank? Will it also stain the sponge? Will the sponge and the tank then be of no use other than for treating fish with clout, or is it only a harmless blue stain visual only?

Are the any downsides to treating the fish if they do not have bloat?

I would appreciate any help. There's got to be someone around here who's had experience with bloat before, right?


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Some new information:

Went to the pet store today. Found clout. Found jungle parasite clear food. Also found some api solution that the fish are somehow supposed to ingest, but I passed on that stuff because it seemed like about the same thing as the jungle food, harder to administer, and contained less Met.

When I got home, I noticed the lab was looking less bloated. I decided to first try feeding the tank the Jungle parasite food to see if the lab I suspected of bloat would eat it. All the fish, including the bloated lab, went after the food enthusiastically at first, but then they were not happy with the food at all. They were not very happy with me that they didn't get their NLS. ALL of them kept spitting out the food, so I don't know how much if any of what I put in was actually eaten at all. When I did notice is that the lab I suspected of bloat seemed to be the one trying to eat the food the most. In general, the labs seemed to try to eat the food the most - the aceis wanted none of it. The instructions say to feed for 3 days straight, so maybe by tomorrow, they'll be hungry enough to eat it.

Still hoping for any helpful comments or ideas.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Just wishfull thinking maybe-- but what are the odds of it not being a disease but a lady a bit on the "ripe" side. If she's eating and acting fine, do you have a male handy? Could be totally wrong of course, but I might look at it from that angle. Had any spanwing going on to compare it with?


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

It very well could be. I'm not 100% sure, but I think this might be the same lab that the male chases all over the tank trying to mate, and the same I saw a protruding vent from like 2 weeks ago. I never actually saw the female accept the mating, and then the male stopped chasing her (and the protruding vent was no more). I figured maybe they tried to mate but the female didn't hold the eggs or spit or ate them due to inexperience. None of my labs have held yet. I think an acei held once, and I can't quite tell but I suspect an acei maybe started holding again just yesterday. There is also a pit in the sand that reappeared - the last and only other time I saw it in that particular spot was when the acei was holding last time. But no labs have held, and I've never noticed a swollen tummy like that. Also, none of the labs appear to be courting this particular fish and I haven't seen the male give his shimmy to anyone in a couple weeks, so idk.

Anyways, just did a big water change, and the water I put back in was a couple degrees cooler than the normal tank water, so if she's a female about ready to go, I might know by tomorrow.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

By odd timing we have the same groups at the same time. I rarely see my yellow labs digging a pit to spawn while the aceii seem to feel it needed. By a streak of rather bad luck, I have a really messed up M/F ratio. It seems to work so I have not bothered to change it as my main thought was not on breeding either type. I got all the fish at the same time thinking if I bought enough there would be pairs there when the time came. Yellow 5M - I F. Aceii 1M 4F. :roll: As it turns out the yellow lab is holding most of the time and the fry are able to hide and now there are three generations of yellow labs in the tank. The aceii are often holding but no fry survive excest when I transferred one to QT and she spit while there. You may have a sudden population explostion cme your way also. :wink:

To test if they are in fact holding, I put some small food in and watch when they swim through. If they don't eat, I assume they are holding then after a few days the jaw begins to show and they "mouth" the eggs quite a lot.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

You called it pfunmo. Couple days later and the little lab I thought had bloat has a nice big pouch under her jaw . First time my labs have held. I think I can assume the nice looking lab in my sig is the father - after all he is the one who chased her around for weeks. Guess now instead of setting up my 10g to treat for bloat I can think about setting it up to raise some fry. 

Today is Day 3 for the jungle medicated food pellets. I figured might as well finish off the treatment, and I resume feeding the NLS tomorrow. Although its clear my fish are not too happy at all with the jungle food, I suspect it didn't hurt them to eat it for a few days.

I guess for anyone who comes across this thread in the future, case closed?

Oh, and the acei I thought was holding isn't afterall, unless she swallowed them already.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

I had considered asking how things were going. Glad to hear all is well. Now if we just had more tanks.  
On a side note, I now am seeing something I had not expected from my Acei. I wound up with fry by moving what I thought was a sick fish into QT. After moving her back , I had fry in the QT! Okay, so I left them there and in trading around on tanks got some guppies. They evenually wound up with the 7 small Acei fry. Over time I decided to try putting some of the fry into the lab/ acei tank. They were gone overnite so I still have two acei and 15-20 guppies in a ten gallon. Now I see a problem. One 1" long fry is driving the other to hide behind the filter. Mean little mother! I at first assumed not possible until I saw it try to come out to eat and get driven back into hiding. I had not expected a 1" bully.


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