I think my rd is choking

[LordofCICHLID]

my red devil looks like hes trying to throw up as if hes eaten something he shouldnt im worries hes choking but i dont see any rocks in his mouth i feed him some blood worms and he ate no problem but hes still doing a puking motion is this normal and if not what can i do

 

[Gourami Swami]

I see you have plastic plants in there, are they missing any leaves? I have had a young flowerhorn rip a leaf off a plastic plant and get it lodged in her throat. Looked similar to how your RD looks, throat flared at all times. I could see the leaf in her throat though.
I ended up doing minor surgery with a pair of tweezers, and pulling the leaf out of her throat through her mouth. She was fine afterwards. If you can see anything in there, this is what I would recommend. If you cant see anything, try pulling him from the tank and looking in his mouth with a small flashlight.

 

[duanes]

In case no plastic has been eaten, all cichlids have two sets of jaws, the obvious outer ones, and also another set in their throat that slowly moves and processes food items over time.
They can hold a food item with the outer jaws and be grinding another piece up with the pharyngeal jaws, slowly working the object down. (sometimes it days a couple days)

 

[tiger15]

If it is not plastic, it will decay and disappeared in a few days. Once I have a cichlid got stuck with a small fish too big to swallow for several days, and ultimately disintegrated and gone. So it is best not to intervene.

However, I had a couple Victorian cichlid that appeared to have something stuck in the throat, coughed from time to time, reject and refused to eat food for months until starving to death. I even net him out and examined the throat and found nothing. It’s a strange internal desease I couldnt figure out what it is.