yellow labidochromis

[zluta]

could you please advise: our yellow lab is for 5 days only lying at the bottom of our tank. Hardly eats and is quite skinny then before.
Water - Ph7.5-8, Nitrate - 0, Ammonia - 0
Tank - 5 months old
Feeding - once a day, flakes or frozen fish
There is not aggression toward the yellow lab.
All fish quite friendly toward each other.

[peacockbass]

well anything could be wrong. i say they just might be sick i dont know. you will have to wait and let mike or cichlidgirl to tell ya.

[Cichlidgirl]

I would like for you to look at her mouth area. Does it look like it is holding a big mouthful of food ? Or does she make "chewing" motions with her mouth every 5 minutes or so ? If she does it is likely she is holding a batch of fertilized eggs in her mouth. Not eating is normal as is hiding away from the other fish. Get back to us on that so i can try to figure out what else might be wrong if thats not it.

[zluta]

Hi, thanks for coming back to us.
I was watching our yellow lab and it does not look like she holds eggs in her mouth. Her head looks bigger and she is breathing quite heavily. while she was lying on the bottom of the tank she could not hold stability and was falling little bit to the left or right.
when feeding, she has got the initiative but takes little mouthful and that is all. she has still same colour, not visible marking or damage. Thank you so much for your help

[Cichlidgirl]

My advice then is to do a 50 percent water change and add some aquarium salt to the tank. Salt can often help with breathing issues. There must be something causing it though. most often these things are related to cycling issues with the tank, or NTS (new tank syndrome) Even if your tank fully cycled and had for example 3 fish in it then you go shopping and bring home 5 or 6 fish that additional load can break the cycle down, there will not be enough good bacteria present to handle the wastes from the new fish. so if you recently added fish that is a symtpom to watch for. You should have nitrates present, that leads me to believe you have a cycle issue. You should have the following readings:

ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate : you should have some since there is nothing to get rid of it, all tanks have nitrate, when levels get above 20-40 you do a water change to bring them down to safe levels. Zero nitrate is a sign of a uncycled tank. So do a big water change and see how she acts, if she does not improve with in a couple hours of water change then add salt as directions on box and also consider lowering the water level by a inch or two to make the filter spill down to the water this produces tiny air bubbles to raise oxygen and agitates the surfaces which also helps. you want to do this as soon as you can so other fish do not develop the same problems. Im not one hundred percent sure this is hte problem since there are no pics and i have no other info, just based on what you said leads me towards that. try it and get back to me.

If that is the problem and it fixes it continue to do ten or twenty percent water changes every couple days till the tank recycles so symptoms of toxicity dont come back. Dont skip any water changes.

[shooter50014]

I wouldnt hesitate to do a 100% water change. just make sure to add the right amount of declorifier a little extra never hurts. Also make sure you keep the temp about the same when refilling,. Try not to clean your filters the same day as you do a water change as it can send your tank into shock.

Salt is a great thing also it helps with the gill function

As CG stated it could be from NTS. what are you using for filtration?

[Mike]

Heavy breathing and instability is a sure sign that your fish is ill, though it shouldn't be anything to bad as the other fish would notice its weakness and most likely kill it off as to not spread the illness any fourther onto other tank mates.

These questions would help me better help you.

• Is your Lab's stomach a bit bloated?
  
• How long has it been since it has last eaten?
  
• What size is your cichlid?
  

You also mentioned you feed it flakes, in most cases Malawi cichlids when fed surface food such as floating pellets or flakes the cichlid tends to catch a bit of air every now and again causing its stomach to bloat up. Symptoms usually last about 5-12 days often your cichlid dies and other times is cured by doing a few minor water changes I would recommend cleaning the filter right away, also doing a 50% water change and if your cichlid doesn't show any sign of becoming more active in 48 hours do a 100% water change.

Also try increasing the heat in the tank to about 80 -84 F this speeds up their metabolism and makes them a bit more hungry.

Keep us posted and we'll keep the advice coming good luck and I hope this information your getting helps.

Mike

[zluta]

Hi, we would like to thank you for all your advices, it's been helpfull.
IN the time of 48 hours we have changed 50% and 100% of water. Yellow lab got worst, could not watch her suffer anylonger so she had to be killed.
Our first fish dead ,hopefully the first and last.

Thanks again for your help

[Cichlidgirl]

Very sorry to hear that. Like you said, hope its the last too.

[Mike]

Thats to bad its also sad you never answered our questions we could have done more for your fish with more information. I wish you better luck next time.

Mike