Is anybody able to diagnose that?

Found the thread on another forum, found it interesting. Guy says: stable tank, 25C, regular water changes. Fish are dying one by one, with one week period, the same symptoms. Only one fish is affected at the time, faster breath swollen belly, picture says it all:

Month ago he treated the tank for ich with malachite green. No casualties that time. Filter cleaned, water changed 3x already.

I treated a tank of juvie plecs for Ich and while they recovered from the ich I also ended up with a few that bloated much like the fish in your photo.

After reading almost everything in this forum I learned that Nuked, deshelled peas work wonders with bloat. Out of 50 fish in the tank, I only lost 3. I now feed peas once a week for variety but mostly as a precaution.

Hope this helps

Hi that is a classic sign of bloat and it looks pretty bad.As Aleishoo said peas will help if it is still eating.

The causes of this is incorrect diet and/or not keeping the gravel and water clean enough and sometimes internal parasites.Bristlenoses are vegetarians and shouldn't have any meat type food in their diet. ( some breeders give the odd blood worm now and then but it is very few and far between) I prefer not to give any kind of meaty food whatsoever.

If the fish lives in a tank with fish that are fed meaty foods or foods not suitable for the bristlenose or if the owner is feeding the wrong food this is what usualy happens.Or if the tank bottom or the tank in general isn't clean they can pick bacteria up and this will also cause bloat.Also any rotting food or dead fish etc etc in the tank.

One good treatment is epsom salt at the rate of 2 tablespoons for each 10 gallon,do a water change after 2 days and repeat (only adding enough epsom salts to keep it at 2 table spoons per 10 gallons) and carry on that way for a few days maybe even a week.

Thanks, I'll re-post it right away!

While i can't say this with any certainty. I have also read that sometimes overfeeding can also cause bloat. When you consider how small plecs stomachs are, in relation to the fact that they have lengthy intestines I could assume that might be true.

As Bristlenoses has suggested, Epsom salt is supposed to work as well. I don't have any, but I'm going to make sure that next time I run to town it's on my shopping list. The way these fish breed, you might as well be prepared.

as a final point, I've also used Xtreme garlic as it is suggested that it is a good preventative/treatment for parasites and supposedly stimulates fishes appetites . while it states that you can add it directly to the water, I use it as an additive on their wafers every other day.