My best guess i can come up with was he overate and got impacted. I fed the whole group 4 cubes of bloodworms 2-3 days ago. The escondido and gt's usually clean house and the loaches and fm's get scraps. While it could be possible he overate on these, I don't see it being highly possible. Are FM's prone to this type of thing. I noticed him yesterday afternoon and he was looking a bit listless and keeping to himself. was definitely worried about him. he looked like he had a larger belly but nothing to make me thank "holy crap?!"
Well this morning I check the tank and he's barely moving at all. My biggest GT noticed that he was failing and started picking on him exclusively, which never happens... theres even aggression in the tank and no one fish is ever stressed or focused on by attacks from any 1 (or group) of fish.
I moved him in to a QT tank to try to recover him if possible but it was no good. In fact, his belly swelled up nearly 3x the size of what it was this morning which was a good sized bit. if I had to give an accurate measurement, I'd say his belly had gotten the size of a golf ball. I got these fish from Ken back in February I think and the FM's were pushing 3" TL. The escondido I got from him are nearing 5-6". The tank looks great, all of the otehr fish are acting and behaving well so it seems like an isolated incident.
I'm mostly bummed because these FM's were really coloring up remarkably. he was an F! Subin Meeki variant. His other half has some great color as well but you can definitely tell something's missing from the tank.. even though he was smaller than the other bigger species - he was becoming a very intense red on the belly and his finnage was a gorgeous blue/red flaring.
edit:
I did cut him open and expected to find a lot of backed up feces or something of the sort. What came out seemed to be more pus like in nature and extremely foul smelling. I worked at a vet for 6-7 years and when dealing with abscesses on dogs/cats/rabbits/etc they have a very distinct smell... and this was very similar to what I smelt upon cutting him open. The 'gunk' was very clumpy and did have some fluid-like bits to it that seeped out initially but the remainder was very clumpy/hard/firm - white/yellow in color.
Well this morning I check the tank and he's barely moving at all. My biggest GT noticed that he was failing and started picking on him exclusively, which never happens... theres even aggression in the tank and no one fish is ever stressed or focused on by attacks from any 1 (or group) of fish.
I moved him in to a QT tank to try to recover him if possible but it was no good. In fact, his belly swelled up nearly 3x the size of what it was this morning which was a good sized bit. if I had to give an accurate measurement, I'd say his belly had gotten the size of a golf ball. I got these fish from Ken back in February I think and the FM's were pushing 3" TL. The escondido I got from him are nearing 5-6". The tank looks great, all of the otehr fish are acting and behaving well so it seems like an isolated incident.
I'm mostly bummed because these FM's were really coloring up remarkably. he was an F! Subin Meeki variant. His other half has some great color as well but you can definitely tell something's missing from the tank.. even though he was smaller than the other bigger species - he was becoming a very intense red on the belly and his finnage was a gorgeous blue/red flaring.
edit:
I did cut him open and expected to find a lot of backed up feces or something of the sort. What came out seemed to be more pus like in nature and extremely foul smelling. I worked at a vet for 6-7 years and when dealing with abscesses on dogs/cats/rabbits/etc they have a very distinct smell... and this was very similar to what I smelt upon cutting him open. The 'gunk' was very clumpy and did have some fluid-like bits to it that seeped out initially but the remainder was very clumpy/hard/firm - white/yellow in color.
