unclenedsfishfactory.com

Hi Ned and Others,

I have a 90 gallon Malawi cichlid tank and lately my fish have been getting bloat ALOT...thankfully I have been able to cure it each time with Metronyzadole tablets and CLOUT for extreme cases....

After the tank has been running healthy and ok for a while, it will comes back and a fish or two will get it, this is happening a lot cured then sick ..cured then sick

I use only New Life Spectrum pellets and some NLS flake as well...I keep my water clean for the most part with water changes ..

Any suggestions...should I switch foods?
Can I take any other precautionary steps?
Can i feed them vitamins to help fend off disease?

Note ...sypmtoms of what I think is bloat is ..spitting food out, not eating..stringy feces...

I hope to come down and buy some fish soon, but need this problem solved

Thanks for your help!

.....also wanted to add, that some times I see these WHITE FLYS on the top of the water....any idea what that could be??

thanks again

In the store
usually
we feed 90% green flake to the Malawi Mbuna.
Our own bulk Spirulina we get from California,
Omega 1 Spirulina & Omega 1 Kelp flake,
Omega 1 color flake & First Flake,
Tetra Spirulina flake,
Omega 1 veggie rounds,
Wardly, HBH, and Hikari spirulina disks.
Occasional tomatoes, peaches, cucumbers, romaine lettuce.

Recently we've been fooling around with a little more
frozen Mysis, frozen cyclop-eeze,
& new Life Spectrum granular foods...
I have noticed more color, growth, and breeding since we've
made the diet richer......but...
I've also seen more bloat & fighting in my cichlid room since the addition of more protein.

So, I suspect that feeding 90% New Life Spectrum granules
is not good for Malawi cichlids,
but it surely helps with growth on young fish of all types...
particularly Tanganyikan Lamprologus.

I've seen little flies in our fish room,
I suspect that you just have some food spilled on the hood that the fish cannot eat of course.

Yes makes sense about the flies, I do notice some food on teh inside hood...

In regards to the diet, I have a good amount of mbuna in the tank which the green flake will be good for..I do have good numder of Aulonacara species /peacocks in the tank...will they do ok on this diet??

Would the diet be the main thing causing the bloat or could there be other factors?

Thanks

I do have good numder of Aulonacara species /peacocks in the tank...will they do ok on this diet?? YES

Would the diet be the main thing causing the bloat or could there be other factors? sure there could be other factors but...ADD MORE GREENS, FIND OUT

see my bloat paper in the "Library" link on the front page of this site
http://unclenedsfishfactory.com/Library ... Bloat.html

Knock on wood, but i have yet to have a case of bloat in my Tropheus tank. I do weekly water changes and use a water buffer.

I feed my fish NLS pellet and Spirulina/Graze flake mix from Jehmco.

Anyway, the guys on a tropheus forum I read have reported very good results after soaking their food in metro before they feed it. I think I read somewhere that bloat is believed to be caused by a stomach parasite.

Medicating the food might get to the heart of the problem where as dosing the water just might reduce numbers of the parasite temporarily.

Anyway, worth a try.