Sick black moor

[Industrial]

So last November I started noticing that my black moor was not doing so well. He was in a ten gallon tank with another small moor and two dojo loaches. I noticed at night it sounded like he was splashing the surface slightly (breathing air?). I figured that even though they were all real small, the tank was too small and there wasn't enough surface area for dissolved oxygen. I invested in a 29 gallon tank to last a short while until I can put them in a bigger tank.

When I put him in the 29 gallon tank in late November he stopped breathing air from the surface, but he was floating pretty uncontrollably. By this time I switched from feeding a mix of flake and pellet food simultaneously to feeding only pellet.

I also tried fasting him for a few days to see if that would help, but it didn't. I tried feeding peas and everybody in the tank ignored them.

Eventually he started to get better, he didn't have to fight to swim down anymore. But he does float slanted and upside down when he stops swimming. He sometimes also end up in the corner of the tank head down tailfin up when he is sleeping.

In his feces it seems like a mix of stringy poop and sometimes it comes out looking like a link of sausage with air bubbles in it. The air bubbles show up mostly after eating bloodworms once a month or so. Sometimes just from goldfish pellets it looks like that too.

My boss at the LFS gave me medicated pond fish pellets that he uses on sick fish saying that they would probably be the best. I moved him into a 20g by himself and have been feeding him these only and he is not really getting much better.

He isn't as bad as he was, but he is not really active anymore and I am sure prolonged stress is not good for him.

All of my other fish are okay and haven't been having any problems except for the other moor who died unexpectedly with a greenish looking stomach.

The tank mates he had were three small comets, an amano shrimp, a very small fantail and three small dojo loaches. The tank sounds overstocked, but it is not at all.

So does anybody have any idea on what could be wrong or what could help him?

 

[Lupin]

What brand is this medicated fish food?
What active ingredients are in it?
Any shots of the questionable poop?
What is the brand of pellets you give it? Please post ingredients and guaranteed analysis as well.
Does tummy look normal or distended?

Please get pics of the poop as different kinds of poop may indicate what issues it has. If it looks like zigzag with food in it in a DNA pattern, then it could be reabsorbed eggs. I dunno if your moor has history of breeding before. But the presence of air bubbles indicate it is ingesting air which should be avoided at all costs. In this case, avoid pellets that comprise mostly of starch. Hikari Lionhead is the best option I'd recommend. Your other choice is homemade gel foods or Mazuri gel food you get from Ed at Goldfish Utopia online.

 

[Industrial]

What brand is this medicated fish food?
What active ingredients are in it?
Any shots of the questionable poop?
What is the brand of pellets you give it? Please post ingredients and guaranteed analysis as well.
Does tummy look normal or distended?

Please get pics of the poop as different kinds of poop may indicate what issues it has. If it looks like zigzag with food in it in a DNA pattern, then it could be reabsorbed eggs. I dunno if your moor has history of breeding before. But the presence of air bubbles indicate it is ingesting air which should be avoided at all costs. In this case, avoid pellets that comprise mostly of starch. Hikari Lionhead is the best option I'd recommend. Your other choice is homemade gel foods or Mazuri gel food you get from Ed at Goldfish Utopia online.

The medicated food I do not know the brand. All I know is it needs to be refrigerated, it is small pellets, they are brown and have a green inside. They are kind of squishy.

His pellets are TetraColor brand Sinking Goldfish Granules.
Min Crude Protein 30.0%,
Min Crude Fat 6.0%,
Max Crude Fiber 2.0%,
Max Moisture 8.0%,
Min Phosphorus 0.8%,
Min Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C) 400 MG/KG

Ingredients: Wheat Starch, Corn Flour, Feeding Oat Meal, Fish Meal, Dehulled Soybean Meal, Algae Meal, Wheat Gluten, Wheat Germ Meal, Dehydrated Alfalfa Meal, Shrimp Meal, Dried Yeast, Monobasic Calcium Phosphate, Soybean Oil, Fish Oil, Lecithin, Yeast Extract, Ribo-Flavin-5-Phosphate, Ascorbic Acid, Inositol, L-Ascorbyl-2-Phosphate, Niacin, A-Tocopherol Acetate, D-Calcium Pantothenate, Thiamin Mononitrate.

That is actually about half of the ingredients. The second half is all various nitrate compounds and I don't think any of those would be very relevant. I can post the others though if you don't see anything wrong there. From what I know about people food is most abundant ingredients appear first. If that is the case with fish foods, it looks like I may need to switch foods then.

I switched him to a completely pellet diet because I was afraid that he would be swallowing too much air at the surface with flakes.

The stomach is noticeably distended. I cannot believe I forgot to mention that. Although it is visibly distended, I have seen healthy large moors at work with even larger rounder stomachs. But for this size, the stomachs tend not to be as large. So pretty much for being a small guy, his stomach appears distended. I will try to snap a few pictures of him.

No pictures of the poop, but when he does I will get a picture. Also, when I see the air bubbles in the poop it's almost always after a bloodworm feeding. He is the only one in the tank that gets this. Should I feed him some bloodworms and take a picture of that poop?

As for breeding, I think he is too young still. He has been here for about a year, and hasn't really grown since then so he is still pretty small.

 

[Lupin]

I suspected the pellets are starch based mostly. Switch to Hikari Lionhead. Give homemade gel foods a shot as well. I should have mentioned that even excess proteins may cause some fish to become floaty indicating they're very sensitive to what they eat.

 

[Industrial]

I suspected the pellets are starch based mostly. Switch to Hikari Lionhead. Give homemade gel foods a shot as well. I should have mentioned that even excess proteins may cause some fish to become floaty indicating they're very sensitive to what they eat.

I will pick up some of that lionhead at work tomorrow. Is it okay for dojo loaches as well?

 

[Lupin]

Yep. Any fish will practically eat them.