# black skirt tetra sick



## tharsis (Sep 11, 2009)

this afternoon as I was watching my fishies, I noticed that one of my black skirt tetras had what appeared to be a bubble forming on its bottom. There was redness inside the bubble (looked like tissue). I transferred him/her to my quarantine tank and the bubble burst in the process. Now the little guy has a lot of fleshy red material hanging out of his belly. He looks bloated. But is swimming around fine and does not appear to be labouring.

What the heck is going on? Has anyone experienced this? I have searched and searched online but have failed to come up with anything useful. 

any help would be greatly appreciated.


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## Chickadee (Nov 15, 2008)

Sounds like one of two things and without seeing the fish it is hard to tell which. Fish can and do have tumors occasionally or with the bloating it could be internal parasites. Now that you have him quarantined you can watch and see if the bloating seems to go away but I think other than perhaps getting a med for internal parasites (the simplest one that I know is Jungle Labs Parasite Clear Buddies) and see if it helps. The med I mentioned is fairly cheap and easy to use. It is an effervescent tablet that disolves in the water (one tablet in 10 gallons of water). If your tank is smaller you can break it to make it the right dose or if you are not comfortable doing that simply disolve the tablet in a measured amount of water like 10 ounces and then use one ounce for each ounce of water in the tank. Unfortunately it does not save over well so this means that the rest is disposed of. That is why breaking the tablet is generally the best, as you will not lose the med you paid for. Be sure that no carbon is in the filter when you medicate or it will remove the med as soon as it is filtered. If your media contains carbon you might remove it and break the carbon out or if it can be replaced with a piece of filter floss for a while it will help too. This is why a lot of hospital tanks are filtered with sponge filters so the carbon is not an issue.

Please do keep us informed as we would like to know how it goes. Any further information or questions are also greatly appreciated.

Rose


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