Red top Cichlid bloated badly (now dead)

[Ditt]

Hey guys,

I'm more curious about this so it doesnt happen again.

I have a 4 x 2 x2 foot tank with the following:
Barramundi 4"
Barred Grunter 6"
2x Salmontail Catfish 6"
Australian Eel 9"
Common Pleco 7"
2 x bullrout (fresh water stone fish) 5" each

about 4-5 days ago i put some small crayfish and gudgeons in for food (i do this once a month) the rest of the time i feed them all pellets and blood worm.

3 days ago the red top who was quite large 4-5" long started to get more and more bloated, i put it down to a big feed of the feeder fish, but i didn't add anymore fish and she continued to get bigger, i woke up this morning to find her sitting on the bottom dead.

The tank is about 12 months old and had a 20% water change the day after the feeder fish went in (i don't have a water test kit so im unsure of parameters)

i've gone through the health thread without diagnosis - does this problem sound like a water problem? the other thing i was thinking was it could have been caused by the bullrout as they are poisonous, is this possible?

 

[BPags52]

All I can offer is speculation.

I've seen people on MFK say that over-feeding your fish bloodworms could possibly cause bloat. From what I gathered from those posts, some fish can't digest the ultra-high protein of bloodworms (or any food with really high protein content), especially if that is the staple of their diet, and will lead to bloat. I don't have any experience with bloat though..

Also very possible that your fish caught a parasite from a feeder.

edit: Heres a quote from Lupin from another thread:

The main reason bloodworms are best used on a weekly basis is they are very high in protein that undigested proteins can clog the internal organs thus resulting in bloat. Frozen foods should not harbor parasites.

 

[Ditt]

hmm thanks for the input... i didnt think of that though, the tank is predominantly Australian natives and they all like they're meaty foods so the tank almost allways has some sort of high protein food in there... (guppies, shrimp, brine shrimp, blood worm, protein pellet)

so that could be a cause...