help with sick bichir

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
thanks! thats exactly the kind of info i needed.

i tried massaging his back end and got bitten for my troubles, lol!i guess he was hungry so i fed him some shrimp and he ate well.

heres a few more pics. ive been watching him closely and it definitely looks like part of one side of his tail wants to float, but most of his body and the very tail want to sink. sure seems like gas to me so im gonna try feeding him a peeled pea stuffed in a piece of tuna tomorrow.

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mouth size is about 2" i feed him pieces of tuna about 1" x 2" and medium size eating shrimp (about the same size)

he just crapped and it was brownish/orange (which is normal for him) but looser than usual. not a solid log, it floated in bits around the tank.

he's eating, breathing air and swimming around normally, he only looks that way at rest, so im trying the pea trick tonight but i dont want to be any more invasive unless its a serious health issue for him.
 
Ahhh...finally someone posted this! It happened to my Senegal 2 mths back. I've had this fella for about 3 or 4 years and he has been doing great. One fine day, i realized that the lower part of his body was twisted--exactly like it was in the pic. There was no sores or any signs of internal bacteria, and he was still behaving and eating normally; the rest of the bichirs in the tank were perfectly fine too. But it was impeding his movement, and he was swimming in a very awkward manner. It looked like a fracture to me, and my only conclusion was that he must had banged against the tank so hard that he fractured himself. There was nothing much i could do, so i left it alone..accepting the fact that i'm going to have a deformed or handicapped bichir. The amazing thing is that after about 2 or 3 weeks...suddenly he was perfectly fine again--just like before! It was kinda miraculous, to say the least! :)
 
wow! that is great to hear. i hope my little dude straightens out eventually, but im happy with him twisted too as long as he's healthy and happy.
 
sounds like ingestion of air or digestive issues to me. try not to throw in too much pea, just a tiny amount daily for a few days should help clear his bowels. for a fracture, his movement would be very awkward and tedious, I think you can safely assume fracture is not a cause. Do notice the size and the location. If it moves, most likely to be a gas or gravel. From you describing the swelling as floating, I would presume is gas in gastrointestinal tract. If the gas is in huge quantity, it can take fom 1-2 months to dissipate. In the meantime, just make sure he's not snatching food from the surface as this greatly increases the chance of accidentally gulping along air with the food. Remember, they don't really chew their food, they usually swallow them whole.

You did mentioned the feces floats. Did you see tiny bubbles in the feces? Does it float previously?
 
ok, i tried stuffing a pea in his food but that is one smart fish. i tried twice and both times even though it was a smaller piece of meat, the kind he inhales usually, he held each in his mouth and pushed water through his mouth until the pea shot out his gills then swallowed the meat minus the pea. son of a ___ thats smart!

ill keep trying the pea thing cause i am pretty sure from all your advice it is gas. the floating part of his tail only does so at rest. when he is swimming around and his muscles are controlling his tail he holds it pretty straight and normal.

the feces is normally a solid orange/brown log, but this time it wasnt solid but loose and didnt float all the way to the top, but did swirl around mid-water in pieces until i got it all cleaned out.
 
so I do presume that the feces do float all the way this time round? they are very smart. the way to outsmart them is to either grind and make your own food or to gut-load to a feeder, :P any diet with higer fibre content would work. I prefer pea because it is cheap, nutritious and has loads of fibre, :D straight and normal while swimming, hmm, doesn't sound like fracture or injury to me.
 
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