Baby Bichir Bloat?

SpecialKay · Aug 12, 2023

Hey everyone, back with more bichir struggles...

A baby Senegal I am growing out has had it's stomach swell up massively over the past couple days. I thought it was overfeeding, but I've starved it for a day and the belly has shown no signs of shrinking.

Water is at 10/0/0/7.8 right now, and it is kept in a 10gal with no substrate.

Has been fed exclusively chopped tilapia/flounder/swai fortified with vitachem.

Pics

Any information would be appreciated.

Fishyboy🐟🐟🐟 · Aug 12, 2023

Pics are kinda bad quality so it’s hard to see, here’s some possible suggestions
It could be bloat/dropsy look from top to see if scales are poking out along with Popeye
Could be parasites
Could be a internal infection
If it is dropsey there’s a high change it will die, change water more often and feed much less if it is eating

SpecialKay · Aug 12, 2023

Fishyboy🐟🐟🐟 said:
Pics are kinda bad quality so it’s hard to see, here’s some possible suggestions
It could be bloat/dropsy look from top to see if scales are poking out along with Popeye
Could be parasites
Could be a internal infection
If it is dropsey there’s a high change it will die, change water more often and feed much less if it is eating

Yeah, my phone camera loses focus when it moves, and the camera has a 8 second delay between button press and actual snapshot.

Scales are fine, not pineconed. I'll try some prazipro over the next few days and hopefully that is it.

SpecialKay · Nov 7, 2023

Final Update, the Bichir died. Found it with stomach ruptured on bottom of tank. Tried a variety of treatments over the course of 2 months, including:

3 days Epsom Salt dips (2x 15 minutes/day)
1 week round Kanamycin
1 week round Seachem focus-binded Metroplex
2 doses Prazipro
2 days Levamisole

All was ineffective, bloat steadily increased over time until death. It may have just been genetics at play.

SilverArowanaBoi · Nov 7, 2023

SpecialKay said:
Final Update, the Bichir died. Found it with stomach ruptured on bottom of tank. Tried a variety of treatments over the course of 2 months, including:

3 days Epsom Salt dips (2x 15 minutes/day)
1 week round Kanamycin
1 week round Seachem focus-binded Metroplex
2 doses Prazipro
2 days Levamisole

All was ineffective, bloat steadily increased over time until death. It may have just been genetics at play.

I'm sorry for your loss.