what?! my african's tail fell off

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sunnygirl

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what the heck is going on? i recently put a new african in my tank. im not sure what kind, but i thought he might be a male auratus. anyway, a few days after putting him in the tank, i noticed him and another of my cichlids hanging around the surface, under the water lettuce. this is very strange, my cichlids wont even eat from the surface. so i put each in a seperate breeder net. that night the one i had already had developed dropsy, and i noticed that the new one had anchor worms. so i treated the tank for both with tank buddies fizz tabs, for fungus, snd parasites. the next day the one with droply was dead and had blood coming out of its scales. later the other ones tail fell off!! theres no way the others were nipping because hes in a breeder net. anyone know what happened?:confused:
 
dropsy in african cichlids, especially malawi mbuna, is commonly called bloat and is normally the indication of improper diet. mbuna like the auratus are strictly herbivores and high protien in thier diet such as large amounts of blood worms, earth worms, beef heart, and other meaty foods will clog thier digestive system.

as to your other fish's caudal fin falling off. My guess would have to be damage caused by parasites. I always inspect my fish thouroughly before purchase. I will pick one out that I think to be the best looking specimen in the tank and look to make sure all of its fins are intact and not frayed. Just inspect for general health issues. If your fish had anchor worms you probably could have found out before you bought it, or use of a quarantine tank could have been helpful for treating the fish before it could have spread the parasite to your other fish.
 
i inspected the new fish very well before i bought him, and he looked perfect. no sign of any illness or worms. his fins looked really good when i bought him, but they deteriorated after i found the worms. i made sure to inspect him closely, because i have about 200 dollars worth of cichlids in my tank. i know i should have a quarantine tank. the only reason i dont have one set up is because im staying with my mom for awhile, and theres not enough room for another tank. guess i wont buy anymore fish until i have one set up. is it possible for snails to carry anchor worms? i just got a couple new snails and some clams about a week and a half before the fish.
 
anything can work for a quarrantine tank. even a bucket with an established sponge filter......as for the snails I am not sure, I think mine introduced a colony of ostracods into my tank but they dont seem to bother anything. Inspect the snails and see if they display any signs of sickness.
 
what are ostracods? The new snails look great, shells are beautiful, they don't show any signs of illness. but what about the clams? how do you tell if theyre healthy? they never come out of the sand, i havent seen them since they first burrowed in. that doesnt mean they dont come out at night though. the bottom of my tank is cleaner since i added them, that was the whole purpose of getting them, since i cant vacuum(sand substrate).
 
Google it, they are like microshrimp, I never noticed them till I got the snails.
 
yes, i just recently noticed them in my tank too. they seem to skate around the surface of the water, and look like they might be white- about the size of the head of a pin.
 
Mine seem to be brown and stick to the gravel mostly. but they seem also to gravitate to any food not eaten by my snails (not much) I gave them some leftover greenbeans from dinner last night and they cleaned those up. :D I dont know anything about shellfish like freshwater mussles. I dont know if they carry parasites. My guess is that they can. I would try and google thier latin name and see if you can get any info like that.
 
i just took the water lettuce out of my tank because they were all dying, maybe they were eating that. how big are yours? when i got the clams, there was no latin name listed, they were just listed as gold freshwater clams.
 
his tail is growing back nicely. also he seems to be fitting in pretty well. hes got his own cave and everything. havent noticed any nipping. i rearanged everything in the tank so he wouldnt get picked on. he seems happy and healthy now. but i will still treat for anchor worms a third time next tuesday, after a 25% water change, just to be sure theyre gone.
 
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