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i've got a quartet of blue rams in a 36x24x18, with six bloodfin tetras. pH 6.0,extremely soft water, no ammonia of nitrite, very low nitrates. i do two 40% water changes twice a week. recently on ram has developed a distended belly, reminicient of malawi bloat. he is swimming and eating normally. i normally feed flake, frozen, and occasionally freze-dried foods, but now am using angels plus medicated worming flake. any suggestions on what i'm dealing with or if my treatment is correct?

Hi,
Here is a site that may help you:

http://aquariumlore.blogspot.com/2008/05/ram-cichlid.html

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

A few things that concern me.

1 Why the two 40% water changes one would be plenty unless you have a special reason.

2 Freeze dried foods. Think of it this way it is dry and when it gets into their stomachs it expands. If you "must" use it soak it in the tank water until it has completely softened up and full of water.

I personally would stop using the Freeze Dried foods I have not used it for many years.

I would feed them with Frozen Blood Worms at least once a week but it would be better to do it twice a week.

At the moment I would feed then with squashed cooked green peas and the Frozen Blood worms to get things moving along as they say.

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info
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Keith

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Actually, keith has given the correct advise here, although the water changes wont have affected it.
Is it eating/behaving normally? I'm presuming it looks like one of those silly balloon mollies rather than pine-cone scaled?

to answer the last one, yes, they just kinda swelled up. it's like a fish with malawi bloat. definitely not dropsy. i have always changed their water a little more than in my other four tanks mainly because all the research i had done prior to getting them (rams) indicated that they were very intolerant of poor water quality and not exactly super hardy. is it posible to do too much water changing?

If you're stressing them out too much, for sure.
Four 20% water changed would be of far more benefit.