demasoni in trouble!!!!

Q&A about diseases and their cure

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steve0o09
Posts: 7
Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2007 7:43 pm

demasoni in trouble!!!!

Post by steve0o09 »

about 4 weeks ago i had 2 demasoni females holding. about 2 weeks after one of them ate her eggs, which is really odd with my demasoni because they just dont eat their eggs. i just stripped the other female yesterday and fed the tank a huge meal. i noticed that the female that ate her eggs wasnt eating but her little sack was somewhat bulged. she would try, but just couldnt. she would swim up to the food, open her mouth at it, but the shake her head very violently as if she was trying to get something out of her mouth. i took her out and tried to see if there was anything in her mouth. because they are so small, i couldnt really see much. i did see her tongue, though.

then today i fed the tank again, and she did the same thing but this time i could see in her mouth way better. it doesnt look like anything is in her mouth, but her throat is really pink (not sure if thats unusual or not).

do you know what this is??? and how should i treat her???

because i have so many fry at this time, i dont have any more tanks to QT her. i treated the 55g species only tank with 8 Tbs. of aquarium salt. is there anything else i should do??

thanks for any help
steven
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Re: demasoni in trouble!!!!

Post by Pam Chin »

Hi Steve,

Generally when fish take in food and spit it back out, or appear to be choking they just don't feel good. There are a lot of possibilties and its very hard to diagnose fish with out actually being able to observe them myself. Treating the fish is difficult when you don't know exactly what the issue is, using the wrong meds can be worse then not treating at all.

It could be something that didn't go down right, it could be gravel/sand stuck in the throat or it could be parasites. You looked down her throat, so we can eliminate that, since nothing obvious was seen. It could be stress, it took a lot of energy to spawn, and no eating for a couple of weeks, and then demasoni are so brutal to each other, it is a no win situation. The fish stresses, can't eat, parasites take over and the fish dies. I don't know if this is your scenario, but this is a possibility.

You will have to decide whether you can isolate her, and whether you should treat her. Sometimes you can cure this, but if you don't eliminate the stress causing factor; aggressive males in a group that is too small of a group as an example, the stress will come back, and you will be in the same situation. So examin your situation, and see what can you do to protect your females more, and to cause less stress. Maybe you just need some additional rocks or PVC. Then again maybe your tank is too small, I just don't have all facts.
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