what exactly happened to my EBJD?

[Matt724]

K, so a week ago, this guy was in a quarantine tank with some other fish that had ich and just happened to be in the wrong tank at the wrong time. It only got white spots once for less than 2 days, but quickly went away. But when it was in the tank it was up and about like a madman and eating like a pig. It was my most active fish. But then in the last week, it started hiding and never came out, and only very quickly for food. Soon enough, it stopped coming out for food. Well two days ago, I transferred it to my bigger tank, since it finally beat the ich; well, when I went to transfer it, I saw that it had gotten way darker. I thought it was just a side effect of the stress of transferring and it also had a slightly plump stomach, which i dismissed as a full stomach. Well, right when I put it in its new tank after a 3 hour trickle acclimation process to equilibrate the waters, it went right to a corner of the tank behind a rock. It stayed there up until today, and when it finally came out, it looked like it was drifting and having trouble swimming. I came back from cleaning the pool today and found him on the floor, with the plump stomach turned completely white. At first I thought the blue skin had just tore open, but upon further inspection, the blue scales had just turned white. Eventually it died and I put it in a plastic bag and froze it. I plan on taking it to my LFS so they can perform an autopsy and tell me exactly what happened, but for now I'm open to what you guys think could be the cause of the death of my $30 fish.

Pic 1: what he looked like a month ago when I first got him
Pic 2: what he looked like this morning when he was free swimming
Pic 3: what he looked like right when I got back from cleaning the pool
Pic 4: what he looked like right before I took him out and froze him

 

[bob965]

The general concensus is that these fish are susceptible to internal parasites. The bloating and loss of appetite are consistent with a parasite infestation. And for future reference, it takes longer than 2 days to cure ich. You have to continue treatment for at least 10 days, even if all visible signs of ich go away.

 

[Matt724]

Na, I was treating my tank for at least 3 weeks. By the time I transferred him, there had been no signs of ich on him for 2 weeks, and the tank was ich free for over 3 days. So a parasitic infection? Hm, I'll have to verify with my LFS, but it sounds like you're probably right.

 

[japes]

Ich doesn't only effect the outside of the fish. Good chance that it had Ich present in it's stomach which could have triggered the bloat.