Upside Down catfish bloated belly
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Hmm. Can you post water parameters: ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, hardness, alkalinity.
What size tank?
How often are you doing water changes, and how much at a time?
What are you feeding your fish?
What are the other fish in the tank? Looks like you have a big fat weather loach (maybe?) and some kind of pleco in the picture. Am I right and what else is in there?
WYite
What size tank?
How often are you doing water changes, and how much at a time?
What are you feeding your fish?
What are the other fish in the tank? Looks like you have a big fat weather loach (maybe?) and some kind of pleco in the picture. Am I right and what else is in there?
WYite
+1
I noticed the dojo too and it looks healthy from what I can see, which makes me wonder the temp the tank is kept at since a I believe a healthy dojo would be in cooler water than is good for a Synodontis. I don’t know if that would explain the bloated belly, just an observation
So...
I have a 37 gallon tank.
I have 4 dojo loaches, 1 golden dojo loach, 1 Raphael catfish, 1 upside down catfish, 1 bichir, 1 common pleco, 1 honey orange something dwarf gourami idk what type except its dwarf, 4 angel fish, 4 clown loaches, 4 skirt tetras, 1 lace catfish, 1 bala shark, and 2 silver dollars. I have a hang on back filter and a sponge filter. I do a water change every two weeks about 90% to 80% depending on how dirty. Every morning I feed my fish this
this is for my silver dollars, angelfish, dojo loaches, gourami, skirt tetras, bala shark, and lace catfish. I then I feed them this 
and this 
for pleco, clown loaches, bichir, lace catfish, raphael catfish, upside down catfish, golden and other dojo loaches, and bala shark. That is for the morning. I feed them once or twice every week frozen blood worms 
dojo loach, bala shark, angelfish, lace catfish, gourami, skirt tetra, silver dollars eat this. If I remember once or twice a week I give them these 
. I have not bought a new fish in about 2 years except for the gourami which I bought 2 weeks ago. I bought the raphael catfish with bloat and he had his fins nipped. It took him 2 months to fully recover but he does not have bloat and his fins are fully healed . None of my fish have been sick except for the upside down catfish. I do not remember if I bought him with the bloat or not. He had the bloat the first week I got him but he still has not recovered. He does act normal but it is very hard to get him to eat because he is really bad at eating the food. Like he takes a bite and then can't decide if to eat more or to swim away and most of the time he swims away. He does eat the bug bites but not much. I want him to recover already and I was wondering how to cure him but don't know how. The reason I have not used aquarium salt or melafix is I do not want to treat the whole tank for only 1 fish. I do not own a quarantine tank or a water testing kit. If it would help I could do a video recording of the tank and when I feed the fish if it would help. I do own a heater but I have not used it the temperature of the aquarium was about 70 all year round until this month I started using it. The temperature of the tank now is 74-75.
I have a 37 gallon tank.
I have 4 dojo loaches, 1 golden dojo loach, 1 Raphael catfish, 1 upside down catfish, 1 bichir, 1 common pleco, 1 honey orange something dwarf gourami idk what type except its dwarf, 4 angel fish, 4 clown loaches, 4 skirt tetras, 1 lace catfish, 1 bala shark, and 2 silver dollars. I have a hang on back filter and a sponge filter. I do a water change every two weeks about 90% to 80% depending on how dirty. Every morning I feed my fish this
this is for my silver dollars, angelfish, dojo loaches, gourami, skirt tetras, bala shark, and lace catfish. I then I feed them this and this for pleco, clown loaches, bichir, lace catfish, raphael catfish, upside down catfish, golden and other dojo loaches, and bala shark. That is for the morning. I feed them once or twice every week frozen blood worms dojo loach, bala shark, angelfish, lace catfish, gourami, skirt tetra, silver dollars eat this. If I remember once or twice a week I give them these . I have not bought a new fish in about 2 years except for the gourami which I bought 2 weeks ago. I bought the raphael catfish with bloat and he had his fins nipped. It took him 2 months to fully recover but he does not have bloat and his fins are fully healed . None of my fish have been sick except for the upside down catfish. I do not remember if I bought him with the bloat or not. He had the bloat the first week I got him but he still has not recovered. He does act normal but it is very hard to get him to eat because he is really bad at eating the food. Like he takes a bite and then can't decide if to eat more or to swim away and most of the time he swims away. He does eat the bug bites but not much. I want him to recover already and I was wondering how to cure him but don't know how. The reason I have not used aquarium salt or melafix is I do not want to treat the whole tank for only 1 fish. I do not own a quarantine tank or a water testing kit. If it would help I could do a video recording of the tank and when I feed the fish if it would help. I do own a heater but I have not used it the temperature of the aquarium was about 70 all year round until this month I started using it. The temperature of the tank now is 74-75.Attachments
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You have ALL that in a 37? I’ll start by saying I’m not part of the “ your tank is too small police” but... You are insanely over stocked, I don’t know if that’s the cause of the bloated belly, but balas get huge, 10-14”and do better in schools. Same with clown loaches. Silver dollars should have at least a 4’ tank bare minimum and should also be in groups. Common plecos also get huge. I’m not going to go through and say the same thing about all your fish, but you really need to rethink your stocking- pretty much everything gets too big, you need more, need less or doesn’t belong with the others. Aside from size and needing groups, dojo’s are cooler water fish as well. With that stocking, keeping nitrates down is almost impossible even with daily water changes. I hope I’m not coming off like a d**k, I’m not trying to and I made similar mistakes when i started. My advice is to come up with a plan on what you really want to keep, and start over.
I know it is heavy overstocked I get that a lot. My cousin has a spare 110 gallon tank and he said I could take it off his hands but I need to drive to a different state and I can't go their for a while so im stuck with this tank for now. I am planning to move all the fish there as soon as I can get the tank. But are their any ways to cure the bloat?
Oh ok, I would really step up your water change schedule until you get the bigger tank, at least 50% every other day. As for the bloat, I’m not too sure, I’ve had Malawi bloat in some of my rift tanks and I use Metronidazole. But you said he’s been like that for a year, bloat is usually fatal within a couple weeks. Makes me wonder if he has some type of partial blockage or maybe a tumor or cyst. But that’s just a guess on my part.
Well, there isn't much more to say other than what FishAddict already has said. I am going to add that it's debatable that even a 110 gallon tank is going to be large enough for all that. And there are definitely compatibility issues. You'll definitely want to rethink what you put in the 110 gallon, what you keep in the 37 gallon, and what you choose to find new homes for.
WYite
I'm not going into your stock vs tank size.
Could the syno be a female? Some female fish can get very large when filled with eggs, especially without a ready male to spawn with...I don't know about yours, I haven't kept them.
Could the syno be a female? Some female fish can get very large when filled with eggs, especially without a ready male to spawn with...I don't know about yours, I haven't kept them.
I kind of became sidetracked and ignored the original purpose of the post. My apologies. Is the "bloating" on one side in particular? Fishorama is correct, it could be an egg-bound female. The thing is, usually egg bound fish don't stay that way for a year. Usually they reabsorb the eggs after a few weeks or they have complications that lead to death after a couple of months.
Usually the fish is evenly "bloated" on both sides in an egg-bound fish. If the fish is only "bloated on one side, it is more likely a tumor.
With an eggbound fish, you can either add some epsom salts to the tank or you can do a bath. I don't remember the exact dosages. It helps if your kH is relatively low as well, because the fish isn't absorbing any calcium in it's gut from the water and will be more likely to reabsorb the eggs. Anyways, I'll look for the dosages and you might want to do a search for dosages as well. The treatment is very similar to the treatment for constipation.
WYite
