Possibly Sick Fish - Please Help

[Damien29]

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Lately we have noticed that there is something wrong with one of our multies.
His gill area seems "swollen" and he seems to have lost some of his colour. None of the other fish in the tank look this way. The tank is a species only tank with a few tiny snails that snuck in with some java moss.

Any ideas as to what this may be or any suggestions to deal with it would be great!

ps. We've done a couple of water changes in the last couple of days, put some Stress Coat in there, and some cichlid salt.

multies - Neo Multifasciatus




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[fishycanuck]

Damien - I do not know what a "multi" is, nor am I sure what is ailing him.
If at all possible, isolate the fish in a quarantine tank. It can be a clean plastic pail, so long as it is filtered or you can change a bit of the water every day and keep it warm.  Melafix is a good remedy for several of the more common illnesses.
Keep him quiet and feed him his favourite food!
Good luck

[darkdep]

Is the swollenness just around the gill area or is it the whole abdomen?  If abdomen, it may be Bloat (see here:  http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/malawi_bloat.php).

[Damien29]

No its just around the gill area. He swims around fine and is eating. I guess we're not really sure if he's sick. Its just his gills are appear swollen and his mouth is open all the time. He's been like that for a while and just want to make sure its nothing we need to worry about.

If you look at him from behind you can see the gills are bigger than his body but no growth is on them as far as we can tell.

[Laura]

Is something lodged in his mouth/throat?

[Damien29]

We've tried to look into his mouth to see if there was sth there ... and from what we can tell... we don't think there is ...

hypothetically speaking though ... if there IS sth in his throat ... how would we go about trying to get it out without harming the little guy?

[nes]

very very carefullY

[nes]

very very carefully!

It definetly looks like something is caught WAY back in his throat. I'd take a wet towel, a good flashlight (an extra set of hands) and a pair of tweezers - you're probably going to need to push whatever it is further in instead of pulling it out.

I've had my chichlids sample cory in the past they usually spit them out no harm no fuss after a few days (and suprisingly I've had the cory come out alive!) and that's usually the best game plan as surgery might just harm him further.

Do you have any plastic plants/ornaments? That might have been what it is...

Nes.

[Laura]

I'm no expert here, but I would guess that it depends on what's lodged - is it soft or solid?
When my goldfish ate a cory, it took a few days to decay enough that it's pectoral fins would break and it could spit it out. 
It was suggested to me to see if I could cut up the dead cory, so that it could be either spat out our digested in pieces. (It didn't work for me as the fish just sucked it the cory further whenever I took it out of the water)
I think it was Squeeker on the forum who had suggestions for me on how to handle the situation - you may want to PM her to see if she has any ideas.  (Squeeker - apologies in advance if it wasn't you).  I also think it was suggested that depending on the fish and the size of the fish, if it could be removed through its gills, then that could be an option.  I'm really not sure about this last bit though, so I would suggest more research before forging ahead.
Good luck.

[Damien29]

Well we were able to net him without any issues, and looked inside his mouth and all we saw was just white, we could see a bit of black but I think that was his eye. I looked into his gills and nothing there either. When we netted him he closed his mouth, and his gills went back to normal. So I dont see any substrate or anything there (substrate is either a brown or black) and nothing like was in there.

We've put him a little safety/breeding tank now so he doesnt get picked on. We'll take another look tomorrow and see, the other issue is that if something is lodged in there, this guy is about 2" long at the most, and tweezers wouldnt fit in his mouth unless if we get some fancy ones. He's starting to get picked on now by the other fish and he's not hiding in a shell when we tried to catch him, so I'm starting to think that something is definately up.

If you guys have had seen this before and live in that Kanata / Bells Corners area would you mind coming to take a look just in case?  And we'll probably take him to Big Als Kanata on Thursday or something to see if they've seen that before as well.

[Damien29]

well he's in quarantine ... doesn't look very happy in his new home .. but hopefully he won't have to be there too long if the medication works ...

he's on melafix right now ...

so we'll see how it goes ...

[adam_ottawa]

I noticed the same thing with one of my fish.  Instead of jacking, I'll start a new thread though.  Hopefully we can get some help

[Demasonian]

If you haven't done so already, I highly recommend posting your case at cichlid-forum.com in the health, illness and nutrition section. (http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/viewforum.php?f=23) There are some very knowledgable people on there who may be able to help.

As far as my own comments, I notice you say that he is eating, but is he eating normally (ie. is he swallowing the food)? He looks a little on the thin side for a multi, which may back up the idea that there is something lodged in his throat...

[Damien29]

So he was quarantined for a couple of days in a tank with the temp at 28-29, salt and melafix but no luck. He lasted up to the day we were going to take him in to the fish store to have him looked at.

We took his body in anyways and they said it looked like a bacterial infection but dont know what caused it or what we could've done to cure it. All the other fish in the tank are fine and he managed to give us another batch of fry before he left.

Thanks for the help though, at least we tried. Now its just a matter of making sure it doesnt happen again.