How I beat bloat

Apr 28, 2009
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Christmas Island
After losing one of my papa twins in December, for no real reason (just gave up, eating, swimming etc) I decided to keep an extra close eye on the other one, and read up a much as possible on bacteria infections and internal parasites.
The second Papa was one of those royals that would never put on any real weight, and his belly would always remain flat or slightly in. On Friday I noticed his belly looked nice and full. I was not really concerned, but I did make a mental note. The following morning he was hanging in the top corner with an even bigger belly There was no stringy pooh as of yet. Odd as I had feared his belly would sink in like the other one. But instead he went the other way! As luck would have it, after reading up bacteria and internal parasites I decided to stock up on every med I could lay my hands on. And for the first time every, I decided to de-worm my fish.
Treatment began on Saturday afternoon.
1, First a increased the temperature to a toasty 32oC. And turned off the uv.
2, I then did a full dose of flunenol 15. Enough to treat 110 gallons.
3, I dosed the tank with a 120% dose of Myxazin, once a day for 5 days. ( the reason for the high dosage is because I had 2 bottles, stating different dose's? )
4, I added 4 Tablespoons of aquarium salt.
5, Only feed blanched, shelled pea's.
6, On day 2 (Sunday) I also added a full dose of primafix and melafix.
7, Repeat point 3 each day for 5 days total. And only feed pea's.
On Sunday night I began to see the never ending stream of c-thru pooh. By now the belly a doubled in size. Queue the heavy fast breathing.
The long pooh continued into Monday and his energy became less and less. He spent 100% of his time hanging in the top left hand corner.
By late Monday night he looked really bad and I was ready to crack him on the head. His belly was 3-4 times its normal size, his scales were lifting but his eye remained normal. It was only the fact that his pooh had developed a much darker color, that I decided to give him another night.
Tuesday morning. Success! His belly actually went down 50% over night And was quite happy cursing around the bottom of the tank. That evening his belly was even better.
By this morning he was back to normal. Eating wood, poohing like a trooper and fighting with my smaller L25! Back to normal. Good times
The question remains why? Not too sure why really. Could bacteria or internal parasites. Or maybe it could have been a well documented problem of panaque's eating meat.( im going with bacteria problem) Not sure. But what I do know is that all my problems that have occurred since I switched back to hikari tablets from ocean nutrition. Not sure if this plays a bit part in a the problem, combined with, say a bacteria problem. But I will be switching back from hikari, for my own piece of mind. I have just began slowly reducing the temperature and feeding my 11 inch xingu, his long awaited cucumber.
I know the list of chemicals above looks potentially lethal. But all fish are doing fine and no side effects have been shown!
Sorry to rabbit on, but i thought this may help someone else. And this is thrid time lucky for me. Ive lost a 10 inch L96 and a L240 to bloat b4. But i got to save this one