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Male bloated, what to do?...

danbb

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150
Location
Romania
A few days ago I noticed that my cockatoo male was struggling to remove feces. He was standing on the surface, with swollen belly and feces hangs (was normal feces, not white, filamentous). I said he ate too much and reduced food rations: the next day just ate some BBS, second day some frozen brine shrimp and BBS. He has 3 days on the "diet" but still a swollen belly. There is no problem with swimming, but moves slower and sometimes lurk under wood.
Last night I did a massive exchange of water.
Is it constipation, parasites, ...? I should try to give him peas? ... although I don't think he will eat peas.
What to do? Recommend some medication that I can mix with food, to avoid decycling the tank?
Thank you,
Dan
 

gerald

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
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1,491
Location
Wake Forest NC, USA
Despite the many, many claims on the internet about "constipation" causing bloat in fish, I really don't think this is the cause very often, if ever. Bloating is an indicator of osmoregulatory failure - the fish can't excrete excess water fast enough to maintain the correct internal balance of salt ions and water. That's an issue with the kidney or gills, with many possible causes (bacteria, protozoa, virus, diet, water chemistry, old age, etc), but intestinal constipation is low on the list of possible causes. Bacterial or parasite infections in the intestines can certainly cause intestinal damage and stringy feces, but "constipation" is just a symptom of infection, not a cause of bloating!

How to treat? It's a shot-in-the-dark if you dont know the real cause, but Metronizaole + Praziquentel, or Flubendazole might be worth a try, assuming water chemistry and diet are good. If he's older than 3 years, there may not be anything that will help.
 

danbb

Member
Messages
150
Location
Romania
After a closer look, I saw that the female has a little swelling on the left side (not entire belly), and few flakes are lift a little in that area. It's possible to be the same disease for both?
They are young so I must treat them... but for bacterial or parasite infections? How can I tell the difference?
 

danbb

Member
Messages
150
Location
Romania
After I have read a lot in the past hours, I think it's a bacterial infection, what do you think?
 

danbb

Member
Messages
150
Location
Romania
I choose to use both: Metronidazol in food (male sensed probably and not eating, I must try something else, maybe BBS kept in metro solution??) for parasites and marine salt for bacterial infection (1 tbs/G). Tomorrow I want to buy some Sera Bactopur also for bacterial infection. Am I doing the right thing?
 

danbb

Member
Messages
150
Location
Romania
Instead of marine salt wich can do more bad in this case, I choose to use Espom salt (Magnesium sulfate) in a short bath of 5 min (once), and one hour bath daily with Penicillin (for 7 days, if they will survive).
 

danbb

Member
Messages
150
Location
Romania
The chances for recovery are low, especially for the male, but I will continue the treatment...
I have read this days that the causes are very varied, some are almost impossible to imagined, like this: "Abdominal dropsy occurs more frequently in animals that come from harder source water and are kept in soft water than vice versa". Source: http://www.jbl.de/en/online-hospital/text_diag/identifying-and-curing-fish-diseases
How can we prevent something like that? If we decrease the water hardness step by step, can we prevent that? If yes, in how many days/weeks/months can we move from a 8-9 Kh to 3 Kh, to be secure for the fish?
 

gerald

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5 Year Member
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1,491
Location
Wake Forest NC, USA
Fish species native to hard-water habitats can't osmoregulate very well in soft water because their salt-uptake cells are not designed to work in water with very low salt ion concentrations -- they just cant uptake enough ions to meet their needs. Fish species native to soft-water habitats have very efficient salt-uptake cells for absorbing ions in water with very low salt ion concentrations, and also efficient kidneys and gills that minimize their loss of ions. Most kinds of soft-water fish can also live in hard water - they just reduce their ion uptake rate as needed. But some soft-water "specialists" (including some black-water Apistos, tetras, gouramis) have a difficult time in hard-water; apparently they can't lower their ion uptake rate enough, and the excess Calcium slowly blocks up their kidney (and maybe other organs), making the fish unable to osmoregulate. So, you can get bloat either way, with hard-water fish in soft water OR with soft-water fish in hard water. It just takes longer for the damage to become apparent with soft-water fish kept in hard water. If the hardness and ion content are too high or too low for the fish's organs to work properly, moving the fish to water with proper hardness and TDS should be done quickly; I dont think there's any physiological "stress" caused by moving a soft-water Apisto immediately from 160 mg/L hardness (9 dGH) to a more appropriate level like 1 dGH (18 mg/L).
 

danbb

Member
Messages
150
Location
Romania
I see. I want to know what I did wrong. Today I saw Planaria also in my tank, it appears wright after the hydra, so it must be something that I put in the tank without disinfection, I guess. There are some wood that I put in the tank without be boiled, because they are to big, but these wood was very dry, I kept them few weeks in a bowl to sink before add in the tank. First I was thinking about BBS, that maybe the procedure that I follow is not secure to eliminate the potential bacteria, but hydra has nothing to do with freshwater. I an using new frozen food from about 10 days, but it's less likely to be that.
PS: I removed the male today, unfortunately. The female is not good also...
 
Last edited:

danbb

Member
Messages
150
Location
Romania
I found the female dead this morning...
Now I must decontaminate the tank, but without a bacteriological exam I'll never know what killed them, and what I must use to make the tank secure.
 

gerald

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5 Year Member
Messages
1,491
Location
Wake Forest NC, USA
So sorry. It's possible they might have been infected with something before you got them. Some diseases can lie dormant in a fish for months or years until some stressor (water chem, diet imbalance, fear, breeding, etc) weakens the fish's immune system. Quarrantine is helpful against diseases that tend to show symptoms quickly, like ich, but it can't protect against those slow-growing diseases that may not show symptoms for months or years.
 

danbb

Member
Messages
150
Location
Romania
I had this pair since 16 dec 2013, so not from long time. In this period they had 2 series of fry, all are growing healthy in smaller tanks. I remember that one month ago I saw the pair and fry at the surface, I made a massive water change, next day the same, the water values was ok, I thought it is a oxygen deficit so I put one air stone 24/7. Maybe this was the first sign that something's wrong with them.
The problem is that I have hydra and planaria in the tank, and maybe both came with this infection that just kill them...
Is there any treatment for all: hydra, planaria and viruses that didn't affect my good bacteria? Maybe Fluebendazole and ....? Because Metronidazole I saw it's affecting good bacteria.
What do you say about leads the fish to bacteriological analysis?
Thanks.
 
Last edited:

danbb

Member
Messages
150
Location
Romania
I'm thinking about Fluebendazole and Furanol (Nifurpirinol), but the second must be added with filter "turned off".
 

gerald

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5 Year Member
Messages
1,491
Location
Wake Forest NC, USA
If the filter media doesn't get treated, hydra and planaria might survive in there. If you want to be sure of killing them all, it might be better to sterilze everything with bleach, then re-seed nitrifying bacteria from an un-infected aquarium or buy a bottle of filter bacteria culture. Planaria are only a problem for eggs and maybe newly hatched wrigglers - once the fry are swimming, planaria are not a threat.
 

danbb

Member
Messages
150
Location
Romania
I tried today to do a bacterial examination, but because the fish are small, don't appears just bacteria/virus that caused the disease, but a multitude of bacteria / viruses, so I quit. Sample is taken from the anterior kidney, and because is very little, it most likely will be contaminated with other bacteria (from skin, etc. ..) so the result is not exact.
There is no problem with the drugs, just I need to know which is the best treatment to clean the tank of bacteria / parasites.
PS: the tank is empty of fish
 

Mike Wise

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5 Year Member
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Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.
Bleach. Drain the tank, remove everything and add a 10:1 mix of water:bleach. This will kill anything in the tank. Do the same for any inorganic material that goes back.
 

danbb

Member
Messages
150
Location
Romania
Thanks. I think I'll need to do that with the filter started, so it's like a new start-up for the tank.
 

gerald

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5 Year Member
Messages
1,491
Location
Wake Forest NC, USA
For a bacterial exam to be useful, you really need to take the sick fish out BEFORE it dies, kill it quickly (in ice water or chop off head), then examine it immediately. There's too many opportunistic bacteria and fungi that grow VERY fast on a freshly dead fish, and will quickly outnumber that ones that actually made the fish sick. However, you can still look for Mycobacterium granulomas (they look and feel like tan, yellow or brown sand grains) in the kidney, spleen, and liver even on fish that died in the tank. There's some other diseases that cause similar lumps in these organs (Nocardia is one) but Myco is usually the most common disease that causes this symptom.
 

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