Fish with enlargged stomach and staying near the surface

I don't think she has a choice in the matter, one of my common BNs is currently sitting on the waterline of my tank with one fin sticking out. She has an enlarged belly and I'm hoping it's not bloat.

I have attached a picture and would appreciate feedback, if it is bloat should I place her into a breeding trap and provide her with some peas?

PS none of the other fish in the tank are exhibiting any signs of distress.

PPS I BELIEVE it's a common, although the photo makes it look a little more like a peppermint. I bought a trio today with an egg laden female and a brute of a male. Perhaps it is a peppermint and just looks like a common to the eye.

Please help, if it is one of my female peppermints I will be more than angry

Just an update, she has since swam into the tank and is hiding. But at least she can still swim I suppose.

Please help and if someone is feeling really nice they can tell me that she actually has eggs lol

Sorry but im unable to give a helpful answer to whats happened to your poor bn but i can say that it looks like a common to me going by the patterning on the body. to me it does look like bloat but im not 100% sure. id move her to the fry saver like you mentioned with peas but im unsure if she will eat in her condition. maybe someone else can give a better answer than me to help you and your fish out. fingers crossed for you mate

It looks like bloat and it's possibly having an effect on the swim bladder, hence the hovering at the waterline.

If you can it would be better to seperate it to another tank and stop the risk of it spreading to the others, if not then try thr trap. Deshelled peas are a good first step in treating bloat if the fish is still eating.

Do you know what it's diet has been?

From what I can see it looks like a common BN.

bloat ahoy!

If she is still eating then i would get her on the deshelled peas ASAP!! i would also give the whole tank a go at some deshelled peas too, they are actually good food for them anyway and it will give them all a good clean out

As for her I would get her into a Q-tank and give her some deshelled peas. Stick around to see if she is still eating as if she is not then you will have to go to the medications. What you need is a anti-biotic. there is a list of good treatments in the thread called bloat which is stickyed up the top of this section or in the bloat section of my book. I would suggest doing that anyway as i imagine the bacteria in her gut would already be doing some damage.

good luck with it, never a good thing to see

Thanks for the responses guys, unfortunately when I woke this morning she was floating upside down in the tank.

I believe it may have something to do with my filtration. At present I run a 4ft bare bottom tank with 2x Otto PF-1200N power filters (2x1200 LPH) The water always seems to have a cloudy look to it despite having several large pieces of driftwood in it. Just wondering how to maintain a bacterial base for a bare-bottom tank?

well as stated in your other post a canister filter would be your best bet for a stable and healthy tank. For now tho you should really get some deshelled peas into the tank for your other fish to help prevent this from happening again

sorry to hear about your fish

Most of the people on here have lost fish to bloat, myself included and its never much fun.

that cloudy appearence is common in a lot of bristlenose tanks running only powerfilters or sponge filters and feeding vegetables. my breeding tanks will often go a bit cloudy when i have fry in them as the frequent water changes will knock the bacteria around a bit. As Kfenk suggested, a canister is the best bet. I run a 2200l/h + UVc unit on my grow out tank and it is solid as a rock. 50% water changes without even a hint of issue. keep the internals in there too, bristlenose like a bit of current

canisters are getting cheep now too, you can get one similar to mine for about $200 with media!! BARGIN!!! I always add in more biological media and often take out some of the sponge as i love more biological filtration

Thanks doug, it's approx 200L and I change 10-15L of water every 3 days. I also have 4 chambers on my otto power filters and rinse one of them per 1-2 weeks.

Also, the filters have sleeves on them now, however I can't keep them clean and have to move them once a day to stop the filters clogging up to the point of 0 current

I found this with ottos too on my breeding tanks. the poo is too much for them and clogs them very quickly as they have very fine filter foam. I actually swapped mine over to a larger foam in the form of a pond sponge pre-filter. now it works much better. bit of messing around but once i got it on its awesome!

Eheim internals are the same, the foam is so fine it gets clogged up quickly. But then again they are so easy to clean it only takes a minute

kfenk wrote:

Eheim internals are the same, the foam is so fine it gets clogged up quickly. But then again they are so easy to clean it only takes a minute

Filter maintenance has never been an issue for me, however therein lies my quandary. The tank is bare bottom so thoroughly cleaning the power filters causes the tank to go into a mini-cycle.

clean them alternativly?

clean one on mon and sat and clean the other on wed and sun. or longer if they dont get cloged that quickly