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GT Not Eating

1538 Views 5 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  jimmyknuckles, 
J
Hello,

I have a tank with a 5 inch Green Terror that I've had (in the same 75g tank) for about a year. He was under an inch when I got him. In the tank with him are 2 1.5 inch male convicts, a ~1 inch Severum, 7 tiger barbs, and 4 clown loaches. I added 2 tiger barbs and the sev last week.

Normally he eats about 8-12 large Dainichi pellets per feeding, he ignores the 1mm smaller pellets I feed to the other fish. Yesterday he only ate two pellets and lost interest in the rest I attempted to feed. He wasn't spitting the food, but I noticed a larger than usual quantity of food coming out of his gills. Today he simply ignored all food I attempted to give him this morning, and did the same this evening when my girlfriend fed them.

I see no outward sign of trauma (nothing in the tank could really hurt him anyway, since he's 4-5x larger than anything else). My water quality is within normal parameters, and all other fish are healthy and behaving normally.

How would I go about diagnosing what is wrong? Should I start any sort of treatment?
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cichlidaholic
You may have introduced something to the tank with the new fish, if you didn't quarantine them first.

I'm just not hearing enough symptoms to determine which direction to go in treatment wise.

Have you changed his food recently?

Try adding some epsom salt to the tank at 1 cup per 100G of water, and fast the fish for a couple of days.

Do you have a tank to remove the GT to in case you need to treat with meds the clown loaches may not tolerate?

Kim
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cichlidaholic
Epsom salt is not the same as aquarium salt. Epsom salt has both laxative and analgesic properties.

We use it on fish who aren't eating to check for intestinal blockages, as well as to clean out the digestive system when parasites are suspected, and either of these problems could apply to your situation. Aquarium salt won't help.

If after a couple of days with the epsom salt in the tank, the GT still isn't eating, then you may need to treat with antiparasitic meds, so you might go ahead and be prepared to do that.

Kim
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