FishProfiles.com Message Forums

I bought 2 otos nearly a year ago now and they spawned twice. 5 fry survived and I decided to increase their number by 3. Over 2 months I got another 4 spawns and now I'm not even sure how many otos are in the tank. Yesterday I saw one that looked extremely fat like ready to explode. Today there are 3 that look like that or close to it. Most of my smaller ones appear normal and everyone is still swimming about actively eating algae that grows in large amounts on my driftwood. They also steal flakes, love algae wafers and shrimp pellets, and occasionally eat freeze dried bloodworms. I've also seen one sucking on a tubifex cube. They are very well fed with whatever they want to eat.
Ammonia/nitrite:0
ph 7.8
gh 2
kh 14
nitrates: was 20 did a waterchange now around 15

Can I treat this? I think it's nearly impossible to locate and remove every oto in my tank without destroying half the plants to find them.

So the bloating is the problem? It can probably be treated, though I wouldn't worry unless some started dying-- sometimes fish just get huge when they're reading to breed, etc. As usual, de-shelled peas work well, or any other remedies for a bacterial bloat.

It's spreading! One of my cory has a huge stomach now with red marks. septicemia? I netted out 4 otos and the sick cory to the 10g. Added melafix to both tanks. Then my applesnails said they don't like melafix so I spent a few hours pulling my 200 baby purple striped snails out to a bucket. Good thing they can breathe air and don't need a heater. The worst 3 otos now have clamped fins. I went through the tank but couldn't find any others that looked sick.

Sham, I would treat those fish with a nitrofuran type antibiotic as those are most readily absorbed into the blood stream, moreso than other antibiotics, other than Kanamycin (Kanacyn). Start with half dose since they are scaleless. I would not use Kanacyn with scaleless fish after reading there may be issues with it and them.

Furan-2 is one example. You can find similar ingredients in Fungus Clear Tank Buddies.

Septicemia is very serious and success will be a long shot. Even if the infection is cleared, IF that is what is causing it, there could be irreversible organ damage. You'll know very soon.

Watch the cory - I'm interested as to whether he begins to lose equilibrium. I've seen this before with cories that had septicemia. It can be preceded by an aeromonas infection or even parasites. More than likely, they got into something bad. Could be a corner in the tank that has stagnated, or even frozen food that went bad. Never thaw and refreeze or refigerate. Compacted gravel or substrate can create areas of no dissolved o2 where nitrifying bacteria (aerobic) die and bad bacteria (anaerobic) rise.

Here's more on Aeromonas (forgive the slant on channel catfish/foodfish because they cannot treat food fish with nitrofurans). If the fish are eating, I'd suggest the new Jungle Anti-Bacteria medicated feed, crushed and sunk, along with the bath treatment.

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/FA042

Let us know how they do.

Last edited by Cory_Di at 12-Feb-2005 22:19

I can find nothing wrong in my tank or with my feeding. There are no anaerobic spots in my substrate that I found and all other fish are doing fine. Once I removed the sick fish noone else came down with it. I only have 3 otos left in the main tank, 2 in quarantine, and 2 julii cory left that are in quarantine. I treated with clout at more than full strength. All but 1 oto has recovered and 1 of the cory that had red spots is doing better but still doesn't look normal. I'm going to go another round with the clout but everyone seems more active and they at least aren't getting worse. After another 4-6 days I'm moving any healthy fish to another empty 10g without meds and see how they do. Hopefully all the fish will appear healthy and I can just remove the clout and go from there. The only medicines I can find here are melafix, pimafix, and clout. The last is only be luck that petland just decided to start carrying it. I have yet to find medicated food within a 75mile radius.