Overeating?

[nomadofthehills]

I have a little 4" senegal bichir in a 15g growout. He is one of my favorite fish, ate in the jar I was acclimating him the night I got him.

I guess he was about 2.5-3" and skinny when I got him, now about the width of a pencil.

Until now. He ate some swordtails and tigerbarbs I didn't think he could. This was over the course of a week. Now, two weeks later, he hasn't passed them yet. He has a huge buldge, three times the width of his body.

He still trys to eat, although I have cut back on the food for the other guys so he doesnt get any more.

He was eating NLS, tetra cichlid sticks, red wigglers, bloodworms, brine shrimp, mysis shrimp, ocean plankton, Omega ONE flakes, and krill.

He is pretty lethargic, and rests on the floating plants on the top, most of the time. He breathes a little heavy too.


Is there anything I can do to help him? WIll this pass? Has anyone had their bichir eat to death?


Thanks

 

[grmanrocks]

dont know what u could do but ya lost pf ppl; have lost thier bichirs to overeating.... i think urs will be fine tho, just dont feed asmuch and it should pass...... i hope........

noreally ur fine

 

[Honda12]

If you can, put 3 drops of cod liver oil in directly in its mouth. It acts as a fish laxative. I have heard of birchirs getting bloat from eating to much which might be what he has.

Guppy was the one who says to use the cod live oil and I used it on one of my fish and it worked great.

 

[nomadofthehills]

Thanks, I'l try that. What I don get is, in the wild, if a bichir founda ton of food for some reason, he would eat himself to death? It seems like nature is weeding out the "lucky" fish.

My cichlids stop when they get full lol.

 

[beblondie]

I have only been able to fill a bichir up once and she was hungry again about 4hours later