Sunken Belly Prognosis

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fishytales

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Jan 16, 2018
Messages
16
Originally posted this in the cichlid forum, but not much interest there. Hope some of you have some insight into this issue.

Here’s my post:

I’ve lingered around this and other forums for quite some time now. Thanks for everything y’all do to help other fishkeepers!

So I’ve had my first cichlid tank for about a year now and three months ago I noticed a concave belly on one of my cichlids. Not knowing much about sunken bellies, I ignored it. Soon it showed up in a couple more fish and a month later I lost 4 of them. Not until recently did I figure out that it’s a disease, potentially caused by parasites.

So after scouring through 100s of threads, I treated the tank with metro and prazi and also set up a medicine tank for the ones looking really bad (3 of them). I’ve seen significant improvement in their behavior and eating since I treated the tanks.

So my 70 gal tank now has 20 mbunas, 2 of them with a slightly curved belly. They’re all active I’ve always maintained my tank at 0 ppm ammonia, nitrites and minimal nitrates.

My question is for the fish in the medicine tank - how long before they return to normal. They all eat and poop fine, no stringy white poop or anything like that. But after 3 weeks I’ve not seen any improvement in their belly. Can anybody post about your experience with this and how long it took for the fish to recover (assuming they’re now free of parasites)?

Really appreciate your time!
 
Can't help with sunken belly, never run into that. However if they show no signs of illness and act completely normal, and it's been a couple of weeks, I would see no harm in adding them back in. The meds seem to have worked and the sunken belly's might just be a cosmetic thing now
 
Ok, thank you. I’ll give it a bit more time to make sure there’s nothing lingering. It’s frustrating now knowing one way or the other.
 
I did some research, sunken belly is a common symptom of Mycobateriosis, which is hard to cure and is from the genus that TB is. Luckily you can't get TB from it but any open wounds/cuts on your hands and arms when you reach in the tank have a chance of getting an infection so I would be cautious just in case it is this. Looks like you dosed the right meds, I would say give it another week max, then add them back. Best of luck!
 
Thanks. That’s quite scary. So far the only symptom has been the sunken belly. None of the other outward symptoms of fish TB. I hope that’s not it. The last thing I want to be worried about is the 100 times in the last few months I put my hand in the aquarium.
 
I wouldn't sweat it, slim chance it's that it's just something I found related, if there haven't been any other symptoms, odds are quite slim of it being that and getting something from it
 
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