# sunken belly



## car0linab0y (Aug 10, 2009)

Male dem has had the sunken belly for a while now. He looked like he was going to die at first, but is now swimming normally and his fins have grown back. The sunken gut is the only remaining issue. He eats and looks healthy otherwise.


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## roke28 (Oct 26, 2008)

Could be a internal parasite. I would quaratine him for awhile and see how he does. My Rusty had a sunken stomach but still ate. Put him in the Quaratine and sure enough white poop.


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## nmcichlid-aholic (Mar 23, 2011)

With dems, it is probably the result of aggression from tankmates (especially if he had torn fins, too). Put it in a hospital tank to recover and hopefully that will be enough for him to gain some weight. Keep a close watch for symptoms of other illness that can be caught by constantly stressed fish, like bloat.


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## GTZ (Apr 21, 2010)

I've had success in the past treating sunken stomach by quarantining and feeding Jungle Anti-Parasite medicated food. You'll need to sort of squeeze the pellets in the water to get them to sink.


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## Mal&amp;Vic1998 (Nov 9, 2010)

Lost some nice ones due to internal parasites. Treated with Metafix(spelling ?) from Walmart and hooked up my U.V. Sterelizer and everything getting back to mormal. Sunken bellies are steadily getting back to normal. I have never had any fish disease in 10 years. I got lazy one month & Parasites, my fault. Won't happen again.


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## car0linab0y (Aug 10, 2009)

I used the Jungle treatment in the main tank because I happened to have a bottle that came with one of my tanks, but I dont think it did anything for him at that time because he tends to spit food back out at first, so other fish got what he could have eaten. Used 3x (over about 2 wks) in the hospital tank so far. Sunken belly looks a little better, but still noticable. He just started to come to the top of the tank when he sees me, so I take that as a good sign. Still tends to spit food out the first time, but he ACTS hungry at least. He's had the sunken belly for a while now, so I'm sure he's on the path to recovery.


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## GTZ (Apr 21, 2010)

It won't work unless it's used exclusively as indicated on the bottle.
3 days per week (I assumed consecutive) for 4 weeks, feeding no other foods during those 3 days.
You may need to fast the fish for one day prior to switching to the medicated food, so the fish is hungry enough to eat it.
I also dosed metronidazole in the water, around 100mg per 10g of tank water and performed daily 20% water changes, lights off, no carbon.


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