This fish really had a great personality. She was a leopard snakeskin, quite small, and dominated her much larger tankmates. She always ate well and at feeding time would claim a section of the tank as hers.
A few weeks ago she stopped eating. I removed her and her mate to their own tank thinking that stress was playing a key. Then she began to bloat up. I was certain that she had a malignant tumor. She got so large that only a tumor could cause her to become as distended as she did. Finally I had no choice but to humanely deal with it.
I decided an autopsy was in order. What I found really surprised me. There was no tumor. All that bloat was merely water. The dissection revealed a plant stem lodged in her upper intestines. She simply couldn't pass it, and I don't think there was anything I could have done to save her.
I keep a floating plant called pothos in my discus tanks. The discus like to hide beneath it and pick at the roots for food. It just goes to show how providing what we think is the best environment may be deadly. Also, when a fish gets ill, we usually expect some disease. We hardly expect a fish to die from something it consumed. However...........
A few weeks ago she stopped eating. I removed her and her mate to their own tank thinking that stress was playing a key. Then she began to bloat up. I was certain that she had a malignant tumor. She got so large that only a tumor could cause her to become as distended as she did. Finally I had no choice but to humanely deal with it.
I decided an autopsy was in order. What I found really surprised me. There was no tumor. All that bloat was merely water. The dissection revealed a plant stem lodged in her upper intestines. She simply couldn't pass it, and I don't think there was anything I could have done to save her.
I keep a floating plant called pothos in my discus tanks. The discus like to hide beneath it and pick at the roots for food. It just goes to show how providing what we think is the best environment may be deadly. Also, when a fish gets ill, we usually expect some disease. We hardly expect a fish to die from something it consumed. However...........