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hi all. just noticed this morning one of our flame tetras looks fat. reminds me now more of a hatchet fish in shape. he has also lost some of its red colour. anybody else experienced this? could it be just bloated, or pg, or have internal probs? he is swimming about ok and eating.

any thoughts appreciated

(posted this on tetra talk, but figures it may be better here)

nitrate 10
nitrite 0
ammonia 0
temp 26c
ph 7

Can you get a picture?

Also are any of his scales sticking out and is he pooping? There are a lot of different things that cause bloating, sometimes just constipation, sometimes more serious things. The loss of colour could just be stress because he's feeling bloated (we all know how that is girls anyway). Try feeding a shelled pea, see if he will take that.

Anything else seem off other than the bloat and pale colour?

will try and get a pic when the light comes on abit later. it is eating fine, and the colour is back. not noticed it pooing though.cannot see anything else wrong - swimming and interacting fine and scales look fine.

ignore the discus, he seems to like his photo taken lol. this is the tetra[/font]

Hmm. That does look a bit troubling but since it isn't acting strangely and there are no other symptoms I'd say it's either some kind of intestinal blockage or possibly a tumor. Does it look symmetrical when you look from the top down or does it stick out more on one side?

Unfortunately with those kind of physiological problems there isn't a lot you can do for small fish. Just feed some shelled peas, maybe add a bit of epsom salt to the water just in case it's really severe constipation bit I'd probably skip the epsom salt with the discus in there.

One other option is that the tetra may be female (can't tell from the pic) and really severely egg bound. Not a lot you can do for that either unless you can get them to spawn and drop the eggs.

IME with bloating like that once you've ruled constipation out (looks a bit too round to be constipation to me but you never know) there really isn't anything you can do other than try to keep their remaining lives as healthy and stress free as possible. I've seen it a few times, tried everything I could think of and every single time they've lived for at maximum 6-8 months or so with the problem and then passed away or I had to euthanize because the fish developed bad swim bladder/equilibrium issues or dropsy. I've tried antiparasite meds, antibiotics, epsom salt baths, high fibre diets, everything. In most cases as it progresses it becomes more obvious that it's either a tumor or some kind of abnormality in the digestive (or in the case of females, reproductive) system. Congenital defects, nothing you can do really.

Sorry, I know it isn't good news. Just try to keep the tetra as healthy and stress free as possible, feed some shelled peas weekly to keep everything "moving" and just in case it is egg binding, condition the fish for spawning. If you want to try a more drastic approach, I can tell you how to do an epsom salt bath but I can't say it will work and it is a very stressful procedure. Let me know. If you want to try something a little less drastic, you can mix a very small amount of epsom salt in with the fishes' food (or just feed hikari, they use magnesium sulfate in most foods - same thing). Magnesium sulfate is a weak laxative.

RIP little tetra. he died today.

Wendy,

I am sorry for you. Just keep an eye open to see if any other of your Tetras is beginning to show the same symptoms, given that we haven’t figured out what caused the problem.

Sorry again,

Ingo

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