Senegal Bichir with bloat/dropsy

[Ponera]

Sorry for your loss but great pic on the dissection.

I have more pics if there is interest, I just wasn't sure how well received it would be. Is there a better forum for them?

 

[deeda]

I think you would be just fine posting any additional pics in this thread since it's related to your bichir passing.

I don't know anything to help diagnose what the problem was and it's always possible for a future hobbyist or someone familiar with doing necropsy on a fish that sees something out of the ordinary.

Maybe Josh's Fish might have some insight since he wrote the book on bichir's and might have contacts that could help out determining what was wrong.

 

[Ponera]

I've just mass uploaded the pics I did take. None of these are labelled, it's pretty easy to figure out what is what with the other labelled pic.

 

[Theos.dad]

View attachment 1508761

Well Chips died. I did an autopsy because he simply would not sink and, sure enough, his left lung was STILL inflated. Everything looked fine (I've got a biology degree with experience dissecting fish) except for some ominous dark patches on the lung that kept re-inflating even when punctured.


Sad, but neat.

Are you saying that the dark patches would refill with the dark substance when punctured? Or the lung would refill with air when punctured?

 

[Ponera]

Are you saying that the dark patches would refill with the dark substance when punctured? Or the lung would refill with air when punctured?

The lung itself would reinflate