VERY SICK Jaguar Cichlid Please Help!!

[Haggisman]

Ok my jaguar cichlid (special) is very ill and I dont think he will make it.

Basically he has been acting a bit off lately.He has not been that active and would sit in the one place quite a bit.He has a deformed mouth and gill(his gill sticks out exposing the red gill filaments).Every now and then I noticed my clown loaches would nip at his exposed gill but he would usually just chase them away.I noticed that his gill was getting a little off colour(not bright red but sort of pink).

Anyway he was ok last night and ate a few pellets but when I got in from work today he was lying upside down on the bottom.His gills are almost totally WHITE.I have since moved him to a 10gal quarentine tank and added salt but is there anything I can do for him?Its the white gill filaments that seems the most strange I have never seen this before.Also he is still trying to swim and breathing ok but I dont know for how long.

Any advice would be MUCH appreciated, I dont want to lose him

[H8Parrotfish 13]

Gill Flukes?

I seriously would recommend biospheres. When i was more of a cichlid idiot i would treat similar symptoms with biospheres and it would disappear. I would use that when Melafix wasn't giving results.

[Dragon_Lord_Tia]

i know how you feel my oscar is sick to he has only been breathing with 1 side of his gills no colour,not eating,mucus,white spot right now i have melafix in their so it should clear up

give me an email when you get some results
Barrel_of_a_gun_oo@hotmail.com

[redeye]

guys this sounds treatable i cant remember where i read this but
what you describe is a known fish illness if i am right he is also bloated the bloating causes the scales to stichk out. I think it is an internal bacterial infection antibiotics may help ... goodluck

[redeye]

look here

http://www.angelfire.com/blues/fish_problems/main.html

[Tightdog1]

sounds like gill flukes to me, if he has small white things on his gills then thats what it most likely is. treat with melafix, or try the biospheres. i have used the biospheres b4 and it works good but i caught the disease early for you it may be too late but try melafix or biospheres (anti-bacterial i think).