One of my breeder jewel CICHLIDS looks like his gill is inflamed only on one side. I know it's hurting him pretty bad because I've never seen him this red before, not even when breeding or guarding his brood! It looks like it went down a little bit but he's still not eating. I did two water changes in the past four days as I had an algae outbreak and a mild ammonia spike which is when this started. All other fish are fine and he's swimming around and isn't acting like he's in the process of dieing, however the not eating part could lead to that if the pain doesn't stress him out too much first! I'm picking up a ten gallon to put him in to make treating him easier but don't have any clue what's going on. I tried getting a picture but he wouldn't cooperate. Does anyone have any ideas and I will try to get a picture as soon as he allows.
Sick jewel cichlid
- Thread starter Ariel_Saxon
- Start date
He's the same age as the others. He's part of one of my breeding pairs and I have a trio that took up together but they've been breeding for a year now. I'll see if he will let me get a picture of it this time. They are in a huge tank so they grew pretty fast.
He kept moving so I couldn't get a good picture of it from the back but in some pictures you can see the pink tissue sticking out where it's inflamed especially above his black spot and another shows an idea of how far out the gill sticks out. I've got medicine for just about anything but I've never seen or dealt with this before.
Yes I can see what your talking about. Is he breathing normal like the other jewels?
He seems to be breathing enough to be alive and swimming around but you can tell he's stressing. He seems to breath a little heavier than the others and I do know he's not eating which really worries me. The tissue went down a little bit but slowly and I'm worried he will starve before it heals completely or may need assistance to heal the rest of the way.
It's only the one gill and I've been able to observe close enough to know there isn't anything visible to the eye such as an injury or parasites. There's something going on that I can't visibly see besides the swollen tissue.
I personally would just keep the water pristine. Hopefully the inflammation of the gill will get better and the Jewel will start to eat again.
Sounds good. I'm still gonna move him to another tank so other fish won't bother him! Thank you for your opinion on the issue!
I’m not an expert, but from what I do know about jewels, is that they are extremely aggressive, especially when breeding is in their plans. Almost all the literature I have read about them says that if you have a pair breeding, that they will often kill other jewels in the tank. You said they were in a big tank, how big? I’m just wondering if you may have gotten away from territorial/spawning squabbles because of the size of the tank. Then one day this guy may have wandered a bit too far into another pair’s territory and got a bite on the gill?
I agree with
tlindsey
on keeping water pristine, if you can dose with some salt and keep an eye on it. Just my thoughts.
I agree with
tlindsey
on keeping water pristine, if you can dose with some salt and keep an eye on it. Just my thoughts.
