Fat Zebra Danio Female

[satu55555]

Hi,

I cannot think of what I should do about my female zebra danio who just eats and eats and eats and is really fat. We have 6 other fish in the tank and no one else is over-weight. I tried cutting down on food and all other fish started to lose weight, but not my Julie. She kept eating all other fish's food as well. I wouldn't really like to separate her while feeding and give her her own food.

Here are the details of the tank:

Tank size: 140 litres
All the water parametres are as good as possible and we have never had any diseases in the tank. We've had the tank only for a year though.
Water temperature: 25 degrees centigrades.

There are 7 fish in the tank: 3 Zebra Danios (1 girl and 2 boys), 2 Corydoras (both girls) and two Dwarf Otos (a boy and a girl).

Feeding is frozen food in the morning either bloodworm or white mosquito larvae and mini sized pellets and flakes in the evening. Evening meal is more like a snack. In addition we have always seaweed, zucchini or cucumber for the otos, who seem to really love them.

Any suggestions for Julie's weight loss would be appreciated. Thank you.
Satu

 

[satu55555]

I wanted to add here some more information that I have noticed since yesterday.

The danio female is not eating much now and is hiding away quite a bit. It also seems that she is not straight. Her body curves to the right. I read that this could mean she's going to lay eggs soon. So she normally eats all the time and food is her biggerst interest, but this morning she wasn't interested and looked bigger and more curved than usually. Is this eggs or illness? Thank you.
Satu

 

[loraxchick]

is it possible to post a pic? She could be eggy or have constipation causing swimbladder issues making her appear "curved" as you say. Also, internal parasites can cause "curving" as you say. a pic would be helpful. Watch for signs of flicking or rubbing spitting out food and white stringy poo.
all the best
welcome to the forum
cheers

 

[satu55555]

Hi,

Thank you for your reply.

Here are two photos attached with all her beauty. I did think of some swimbladder issues before, not that she seems to have a huge problem clearly. I certainly hope it's just constipation and being eggy and nothing more serious. Her fins seem a bit sad (not breakage), but she's drooping them. I haven't seen flicking or rubbing. However, I saw some very erratic swimming in the morning as I scared her a little by accident. I haven't seen stringy poo either, but will keep an eye on her for all symptoms. Oh, I meant to mention that on the photos you can see that she has a funny looking spot on her right side. It's an over half a year old sore. She had hurt it on something probably when the boys were chasing her so it has a scar. (I try to keep all sharp corners out of the tank, even file them off ornaments if found.)

Thank you.
Satu

 

[satu55555]

This morning the fish seemed first a little better. She swam a little. I still didn't see her eat at all. Yesterday I did a little water change, maybe 15% or so. We have some blue green algae in the tank at the moment. Could this be caused by that? I'm worried about my little fish, who sits on the bottom and her fins are all just hanging down.

 

[satu55555]

Yesterday, I added an internal parasite treatment and a treatment for blue green algae (after someone who knows a lot about fish said it's fine to put both), but this morning I don't see Julie (the female danio) any better. She's lost weight as she hasn't eaten for 2 days. Please, if anyone has and advice, I'd really appreciate it.

 

[satu55555]

I wanted to update the details here.

I cannot think of what I should do about my female zebra danio is just sitting on the bottom of the tank (mostly on her belly, but a little bit of the time leaning on her fins, the latter being better). She takes some funny swim in circles. Could be because of her being bent. It seems as if she can't bend to the left (the outside of the bend), but needs to like forcefully flip herself that way. Then she swims around a little circle (diameter 10cm) to the right where she bends. She hasn't eaten for 3 days and she keeps breathing rapidly. In addition her body is bent and gills seem red. She has clamped fins. No stringy poo. And she's not flashing and rubbing herself, just the funny sudden swims. It seems as if she can't bend to the left (the outside of the bend), but needs to like forcefully flip herself that way. I don't see anything else on her.

I've given Jungle Parasite Clear and we have Easy Life Excital blue green algae treatment going. Both were put in 2 days ago. A very knowledgeable lady at the shop said it's fine to put both at the same time. Parasite treatment will be renewed today and blue green algae treatment is going another 3 days.

Could she be constipated after 3 days? She's lost weight. She was overweight before. Or could she be egg bound and not able to release them? There's no spots or worms visually seeable on her. I didn 't think fish TB or dropsy would be the case either.

Could it be an internal bacterial infection? What can I do to help her?

Here are the details of the tank:

Tank size: 140 litres freshwater tank with 2 live plants that we've had for a year
Gravel bottom and we have some tank ornaments, but no new ones.

Water parametres:
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 15 (could be because of the treatments going on)
Ammonium: more 0 than 0.25
pH: 7.4

We've had the tank only for a year and no illnesses before now.
Water temperature: 25 degrees centigrades.

There are 7 fish in the tank:
3 Zebra Danios (1 girl and 2 boys) - had them for a year
2 Corydoras (both girls) - had them for a year
2 Dwarf Otos (a boy and a girl) - had them for 1/2 year

Feeding is frozen food in the morning either bloodworm or white mosquito larvae and mini sized pellets and flakes in the evening. Evening meal is more like a snack. In addition we have always seaweed, zucchini or cucumber for the otos, who seem to really love them. The seaweed has got stuck in the filter two times so that as I took about 5 days over 2 weeks to clean the tank, the filter was full of the stuff. I usually clean every 2 weeks. Last proper clean was 1.5 weeks ago with about 30% water change and another 15% water change 3 days ago. We use tap water (which in Finland is better than bottled water) and always put water conditioner. Gravel is vacuumed when doing water change.

Please, advise on what this could be. I've searched the internet for hours on a few days and cannot come up with more. Thank you.

 

[scaeriefaerie666]

I've been looking at this thread and have been completely unable to help you at all - but that load of information really helps. Her body being bent suggests internal parasites or flukes. Either way your parasite medication should work, if it doesn't i would suggest using a gill and body flukes medication if her gills are inflamed. This, as far as i know, isn't egg-heavy behaviour so i'd keep going with the meds.
Try upping the tank temp to 30C for no more than 3 days and possibly adding some aquarium salt, because it improves gill function and kills most parasites. You can use salt with other medications so it shouldn't be an issue. Just remember to do very regular water changes and replace the medication as required - clean water solves most problems with ill fish, though i appreciate that your parameters are fine.
I'm really sorry i can't be more help but i had to try to help you...
xxx

 

[satu55555]

Thank you very much for your reply.

We've done a 25% water change yesterday and renewed the parasite treatment, which says it's also for body and gill flukes (Jungle's Parasite Clear). We put aquarium salt in the tank to ease gill functions and to kill parasites and increased the temperature, not quite to 30, but to 28 degrees celcius. I also gave her a bath in Epsom salt to take care of any constipation. Her belly is still round, but right behind the roundness, it's started to get thinner, close to being a bit sunken. She's still breathing heavily. She has changed her behaviour and is now floating at the surface. Not moving her clamped fins much, only when she has to. Should I try internal bacteria medicine in case there's something I cannot see?

Thank you.

 

[scaeriefaerie666]

finish the parasite course, and if she's no better then try internal bacteria medication. Don't start the next course of treatment until that one is finished and you've done a substantial water change to get the chemicals out of the water.
Try making sure that you've got as much oxygen going into the water as possible, but as little flow to reduce her stress.
Fingers crossed for you
xxx

 

[satu55555]

Thank you for your replies and help!!! We had to put her down yesterday. I spoke to someone who's specialised in fish and she said it really is the best thing because as I gave her the description of the symptoms, she said it really sounds like tuberculosis, belly full of fluids and bacterial infection. I had started to already wonder that the fish didn't look like she had much of a chance of recovery. She was just looking more and more sad. I also found out that they don't sell antibiotics for fish in Finland! Can you believe it! How are you supposed to medicate your fish properly? We made the decision to move her to "wild, blue rapids" in a humane way after doing a lot of research on the internet and speaking with the same lady.
Thank you again.