Help!How to treat ascites？

[crouns]

I got a pair of Apistogramma luelingi.When they first came into my tank,the male always attacked the female.And then I put them in two different tanks .but keep they can see each other.When they live in peace through the glass.I put the female into the male's tank.But only a few days later .I found the male got ascites，now the condition is getting worse.How can I save it?

 

[Mike Wise]

If you mean that the fish has swollen sides and scales lifting from the body (generally called 'dropsy') then sadly it is not often cured. It is an internal infection in which the kidney stops working.

 

[crouns]

If you mean that the fish has swollen sides and scales lifting from the body (generally called 'dropsy') then sadly it is not often cured. It is an internal infection in which the kidney stops working.

Thank you,I had stop to feed it food and Treat it with metronidazole and gentamicin.Change part of the water every day and put a little salt in the tank to Increase osmotic pressure.I hope it recovers soon.It's my favorite fish species and difficult to get in our country.

 

[gerald]

Don't stop feeding; if he's able to eat, let him eat. Food will help keep his immune system strong. Fresh-hatched baby brine shrimp might work if he's stopped eating other foods. Good luck!

 

[Happyfins]

I would say keep feeding high quality food (wrigglers, newly hatched brine shrimp, blackworms). A local breeder was dead against red blood worms in apistogramma. I have found that you can sometimes get improvement in mild disease with feeding less junk (high protein pellets) in rainbowfish. If the fish won't eat it is probably too far gone anyway. I would say bloat is equivalent to multiorgan failure (likely many causes; leucaemias, bowel obstructions, infections, poisons) and treatment should be like treatment conditions for humans before modern medicine came about, ie clean water, good food, no stress. I have never used antibiotics (with the exception of levamisole for camallanus) and frankly not keen to breed multiresistant organisms in my tanks but if I had something very rare or valuable I might reconsider. I think sometimes you just have to cut your losses.