Lab.pearlmutt not eating

[valerie]

I have 2 lab pealmutt, 1 red empress, and 1 taiwan reef waiting in a 10 gal Qtank. I have noticed that the male lab isn't eating and hasn't eaten in a while. It stomach is starting to get sunken and it tries to eat but always spits it out. He just sit in his cave with clamped fins not moving much.

About 1 week ago I had a problem with this tanks heater and the temp fell to about 70degrees. The heater has been replaced and the tnak is now back to 78. I know this wasn't good for the little lab but could it have caused his problems.

None of the other fish are sick and l are still eating. My tank gets 50% water changes every 2 days and all levels are good(ammo-0 no2-0 no3-0 ph7.8) I also added 1TBSP salt/5gal incase that might help.

Tomorrow i'm going to be transfering the fish over to their tank since it has finished cycling but don't want to move this sick lab. What sort of thing can i do to help him?Meds? what do you think the problem might be?

 

[Mad Hero]

This may sound strange, but is there anything hanging off him?
My male con showed the same behavior and one day i noticed a long white thing hanging below his anal fin. I didn't know what to treat with and he died.

 

[valerie]

not thing hanging off or out of him. The only signs he is showing are clamped fins, not eating and a sunken belly.

 

[JSchmidt]

I wish I had good news, but in my experience this is not a good sign in africans. The first thing I would consider is whether he's getting beaten up sufficiently that he's cowering from the other fish and not getting food, but it sounds like he's at least trying to eat. I would separate him from the other fish in quarantine if that's possible, and I wouldn't add any of the new fish for a while.

I've seen this in my fish on occasion, and it generally seems to be fatal. I suspect that it is some type of internal parasite, but I've tried in Q-tanks to treat it with meds for flukes, internal parasites, etc., without success.

Were these my fish, my main concern would be to make sure the sick fish and those with him in the Q-tank don't make the rest of the fish sick.

Sorry I don't have any better news. The Fishy Farmacy (http://www.fishyfarmacy.com/symptoms.html) has a pretty good diagnoser, so you might want to check that out.

Good luck,
Jim

 

[valerie]

ok I'm going to transfer the fish in the qtank over to my cycled 90gal(their permanent home) And hope that i can save this little fish.

He isn't getting bullied and is hiding in his cave where no one bugs him.