Fish Medicine Cabinet Question

[QuarterMiler]

Thanks for the info Joe. Unfortunately, she didn't make it, so what ever she had either hit her hard and fast, or I just didn't notice it soon enough. I'm now paranoid looking at a couple of other afra's and wondering if they have the same thing. I see one other was breathing a little faster but it may have been from all the feeding activity. I fed them just a small bit of spirulina flake just to see who's eating and it seems like they all did except maybe the one I described earlier. She was in the mix but I couldn't tell if she actually grabbed some flake. Being I have no other meds at the moment, is adding some epsom salts OK, and if so, how much? Here are a couple of pics of the dead fish. She definately looks fatter to me in the pics than what sh looked like in the tank.

[Bweb]

Have you noticed any white stringy poop from her or any other fish in the tank looks like bloat in those Pic's.

[deadhead]

Looks and sounds like it may be a nemotoid problem..... Flubendazole works well against nemotoids. You have to mix it with alcohol or very hot water. It is highly absorbed by fish.
The swollen or red by the vent usually indicates some type of worm problem. Also the swelling of the stomach. I would keep using the epsom salts. I got my flubendazole from Charles Harrison. I can give u his email if you like.

[QuarterMiler]

BWeb, I don't remember specifically from her, but once in a blue moon in the past few months, I'd see one fish here or there have it. I'm pretty confident I'm not overfeeding, as I feed once a day a few pinches of NLS 1mm and occasionally some spirulina flake. I also do regular maintenance, so I'm stumped and bummed at the same time. I'm going to order the meds tomorrow and hope that I can treat before I lose more. I haven't added epsom salts yet, should I?

[Bweb]

Couldn't hurt Bloat is not from over feeding their are many opinions as to what causes it Google it their are many good articles on how to treat it. I believe their are a few threads on here about it and one has the best treatment procedure posted by Gibbs check it out.

Good luck man.

[DJRansome]

I do soak the NLS pellets in metro when I treat for bloat and fish are still eating. Just a few seconds until they start to swell. Getting the meds inside the fish works better than just in the water. And then I dump the remainder of the dosage in the water, food and all.

And I use clout in a hospital tank when the fish has bloat and is not eating.

[fischfan13]

Just found this. Now it may not say anything about soaking it in meds, but since we are talking about it...

NLS Website:

Another common mistake by some hobbyists is to pre-soak their pellets, in the misguided belief that this will aid in digestion and prevent swelling of the pellets inside the fishes gut. This is nothing more than an urban myth created by those that simply do not understand the amount of enzymes and gastric acids that are released by most fish when they consume food. Those hard pellets turn into soft mush in a very short period of time! If a pellet food causes gastrointestinal issues in a fish, it will usually be due to the use of poorly digestible ingredients, such as excessive amounts of grains and grain by-products, not from the food swelling up inside the fish's stomach. Most importantly, when you pre-soak pellet food, you are allowing nutrients and water-soluble vitamins and minerals to leach out into the water.[

[deadhead]

Metro has to be absorbed in the gut to work. If your fish is eating that is great. You can make a paste using a veg based food and add metro. If your fish is not eating metro will not get absorbed enough through the fish gills to do anything. If you can get get liquid Flagyl (another name for Metro) you can try forcing some of that down the fish's gut with some tubing. Having kept Reptiles I was able to get liquid Flagyl at some of the Reptile Expo's I went to. I am a novice when it comes to bloat with Africans. All I can tell you is I have had it three times and cured it three times with clout. Problem is swelling of the gut area could be several problems ranging from constiaption to parastic to bacterial... I think you should use the clout and epsom salt. That has worked for me with Tropheus. Also from what I have been told you do not want to mix any other drugs with clout. It is pretty poweful stuff. Also I kept the light off during treatment. Hope this helps.

[QuarterMiler]

Thank you, I appreciate all of the help and comments. I ordered several meds from Jehmco today, but chances are I won't get them until Thursday. I did notice tonight that 2 other Afras have some white stringy, very fine poop, so now I'm in a panic. My work sched just got crazy and I can see now that I'm going to have a hard time trying to keep a close eye on things. I'm going to try to add some Epsom salts tonight, but I'm searching for an answer on how much.

[Afreakin]

Petland usually carries CLOUT. If need be you can run out now and get some.