Miraculous recovery???

[Drammy]

Miraculous or expected recovery?

Hi all,

About 10 days ago I noticed my male apistogramma agasizzii was hiding a lot and very subdued.

About a day later I noticed he had a white enflamation around his anus. He was still feeding fine but he became more and more timid.

The enflamed area became worse and worse and started to look like dropsy so I assumed there was nothing I could do for him. I feared the worst but he kept on eating. After a further 3 or 4 day he couldn't swim properly and was swimming vertically (head down).

By this time the enflamed area was very puffed up with the scales protruding a lot. I didn't treat him in any way as I have come to realise this can do more harm than good unless properly diagnosed. I just made sure that my water params were excellent!

With a lack of a decent camera - I've drawn this sketch of how he looked.

Anyway I continued to monitor him and he is now chasing the females again and showing to them constantly. He is no longer timid or hiding and is eating frantically. He seems to have fully recovered on his own.

Has anyone got any ideas what was wrong with him?



Cheers,
Drammy

 

[Drammy]

Bump, anyone? Its came back yesterday and has gone again today - anyone got any ideas???

Ta,
Drammy

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Drammy I'm not sure, my suspicion would be that it is an internal parasite problem. I'd be tempted to quarantine him and treat with a nematicide.
cheers Darrel

 

[Drammy]

Cheers Darrel,

Have you got any recommendations for products?


Ta,
Drammy

 

[ed seeley]

It might be a prolapsed bowel. I know friends that have seen this in koi. If it is (rather than a parasiter problem) than there's not too much I think you casn do other than simply try to treat the fish as well as possiblt and see what happens.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Drammy to cover the whole range of internal "worms", you need a medication containing - metronidazole, praziquantel and levamisole.
As Ed says a prolapsed bowel is a definite possibility, but I would still think intestinal parasites are more likely. I might be tempted to feed lots of live Daphnia as well, whilst he is still eating, as these are likely to gently purge any intestinal blockages.
Best of Luck Darrel

 

[Drammy]

I couldn't find any such meds at my lfs

I bought plenty of bags of daphnia though and will continue my search...

Out of interest what do the daphnia do that helps in this situation?

 

[dw1305]

Hi Drammy,
The reasons for the Daphnia are they have quite a lot of chitonous exoskeleton, which acts as "roughage", and can help clear intestinal blockages. They are also fairly low in food value, so if the Cichlids eat lots of them it doesn't have any adverse effect. They live in the tank, so you have no water issues with them, and the movement stimulates the feeding response. The only down side is if the fish get very used to them, they tend to start getting quite finicky and spitting out the chitonous bits.

I'm not sure which medications you can get easily off the shelf.
I usually use this site - <http://www.maggiefisher.co.uk/ex2.htm> for what is best, least toxic etc.

The forum Plecofanatics have a "sticky" list of what medicines are available in various countries, and Discus sites on the WWW usually offer a lot of anti-parasitic medication.

cheers Darrel

 

[Drammy]

Thanks once again Darrel,

I see you are a botanist - I checked your profile expecting to see you were a vet or zooologist...

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Hi Drammy,
I look after a lab these days, the work is mainly computer based, but we do some work on water quality (particularly the leachate from landfills), some simple undergraduate ecology (for biologists) and I do a bit of biological recording - butterfly transect, moth trap etc. and also a little bit of consultancy work as a botanist.

I used to keep my fish tanks in the lab, but at the moment I've had to remove them, because of "health and safety" & "animal welfare" considerations, this is despite the fact that the fish were only ever used for observational research, and, admittedly in my opinion, they were some of the healthiest and happiest fish in captivity.

cheers Darrel

 

[Drammy]

Fascinating stuff!

I was heading down a biological career path for many years until computers got the better of me... :redface: