Egg bound firemouth?

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ZoddyZod

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Hello,

I have 4 Firemouths. By some miracle they appear to have formed 2 pairs. 1 pair produced fry (which disappeared overnight). 2-3 weeks later I noticed that the female that produced the fry was being harassed by the other 3 and constantly hid. Her breathing is very fast and her stomach MAY be distended (hard to tell).

I removed her and placed her in a QT tank 5 days ago. Her breathing has not slowed. I can't see any other signs of disease/injury.

Could she be egg bound? Any other potential reasons for rapid breathing?

If egg bound - should I try the 'massage' method to strip the eggs? I can't find any cichlid specific tips/instructions for this
 
Any chance of a picture and short 30 second video of the fish?
If the pictures are too big for the website, set the camera's resolution to its lowest setting and take some more. The lower resolution will make the images smaller and they should fit on this website. Check the pictures on your pc and find a couple that are clear and show the problem, and post them here. Make sure you turn the camera's resolution back up after you have taken the pics otherwise all your pictures will be small.

If the video is too big for this website, post it on YouTube and copy & paste the link here. We can view it at YouTube. If you are using a mobile phone to take the video, have the phone horizontal so the video takes up the entire screen. If you have the phone vertical, you get video in the middle and black on either side.

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It's unikely that she is egg bound.

Do not try to strip the eggs from her because you can kill her if she has an internal problem.

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What does her poop look like?
Is she still eating normally?
 
can't get a video. QT is a plastic box, so not clear enough to take video through.

Not seen any poop. Haven't seen any eating - fish is panting so heavily I doubt she is up for eating.
 
If the fish has a fat belly, stopped eating and is breathing heavily, she probably has an internal bacterial infection and is dying.

You can try anti-biotics but they will be hard to obtain in the UK and probably won't help if she has been sick for a few days.

Try feeding her some live brineshrimp and see if she eats. Then monitor her poop, assuming she does any. If she does a stringy white poop it is definitely an internal infection and she will probably die within a few days.

If she doesn't eat live brineshrimp or live daphnia, I would euthanise her.
 
Last edited:
forgot to close this - she died within 24hrs of my post. No obvious signs of a swollen stomach after death, so probably not egg bound.
 

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