# One fish (CPD) with sunken stomach



## mathkid (Sep 26, 2011)

Hi all-

I currently have a 10g NPT that is a tad overstocked and I am in the process of setting up a 30g. However, it's medium planted with a lot of floaters and water parameters are all 0's.

*Stocking:*
- 5 celestial pearl danios
- 8 adult Endlers, plus about 10 juvies (hence the soon-to-be-overstocked-ness)
- cherry shrimp

*The issue:*
One of the CPDs is really quite skinny and its stomach is shrunken in. I see it picking at stuff on the ground, but I can't tell if it's actually eating anything. It's been like this for weeks and weeks now. I'm really worried that it's slowly starving. Other than that, it seems to swim around normally. None of the other fish are like this. Should I isolate it? 

More generally, how do I tell if my fish are getting enough to eat? When I feed them, the Endlers always seem hungry and the CPDs always seem like, "Welllll, OK, since it's here".


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## foster (Sep 23, 2012)

My guess would be internal parasites. The fish don't eat normally, and lose weight slowly. You might QT it, and try treating it for IP.


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## Doppelgaenger (Jul 20, 2015)

I had this happen to one of my CPDs, it never recovered and died, but I never had the help from the forum at the time.


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## Diana (Jan 14, 2010)

If any fish in the tank have internal parasites, all the fish have been exposed. I would treat them all.


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## mathkid (Sep 26, 2011)

Hm, internal parasites... that means medicated food? One of these (fenbendazole, praziquantel, levamisole)? Unfortunately he is used to pellets, so I don't know if he would even take flakes:
http://www.angelsplus.com/FlakeMedWorm.htm

Or would metronidazole be better?
http://www.angelsplus.com/FlakeMedProto.htm

Does salt help?

I have isolated the fish for now. Do the non-affected fish need to eat the medicated food too?

Pictures are attached - his spine is very bent too. I'm honestly not sure whether or not he came like that. I didn't notice it until several weeks ago. Really hoping it's not fish TB? But that's really contagious, so I'd expect that after several weeks another fish would have started showing symptoms?


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## mathkid (Sep 26, 2011)

FYI, this guy is still fine. I had him isolated for a couple weeks, but nothing happened; now he's in another tank. He's less skinny now than he was in those pictures. I think he was probably just born like that.


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## Diana (Jan 14, 2010)

Mycobacteriosis moves slowly. Several weeks is not long enough to show up in healthy stock, from an infected individual. 

I would find a vet that knows how, and ask for the vet to check for MB. This means delivering the fish alive, the vet will kill it and examine the internal organs for signs of MB. The vet can also look for internal parasites.


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## WaterLife (Jul 1, 2015)

Could have internal parasites/worms (the worms use up the nutrition the fish takes in and so the fish stays malnourished/skinny, getting weaker). Did you try any meds? Praziquantel/Prazipro is regarded as one of the safer meds.

It is possible that fish is deformed or was even squished before (I had a fish in a shipment before that looked like it was squished in the corner of the bag and crushed his stomach).

Pretty much, I would try the meds as it might be the only real thing you can try to help him. There are medicated foods, but there are also meds that you just pour into the water (prazipro). Medicated foods are regarded as more efficient, but they aren't always readily eaten.


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## garfieldnfish (Sep 25, 2010)

Use Prazi Pro. Totally safe for fish and it won't hurt. I would put him back in to the main tank and treat the entire tank. One treatment is enough. I use it on all newly bought fish especially if wild caught. It's liquid and mixes very easy with the water.


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## Veritas (Aug 9, 2013)

i'm glad I found this post. 


I've had a lot of the same issues with my CPDs and Emerald Rasboras.

I'll grab some Prazi Pro today


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## Planted_Edge (Apr 29, 2015)

If you keep CPD's, don't put any other fish in with them...they always get the leftovers ...the more agile species eat the food before CPD's can even smell it. I've experienced it twice.
Had them in a tank with ember tetras and three point rasboras..then another tank with green neon tetras... They didn't last long...

I've also noticed a lot of crooked spine in my CPD's....not sure if a myth or something, but it's been said that they're collected from hard alkaline water and the soft water doesn't supply enough calcium to develop their spine...
That is somewhat suspect though since many people have successfully kept them in soft water and even breed them...


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## selkie (Sep 4, 2015)

Planted_Edge, that sounds like a definitely sounds like a myth. It's probably inbreeding. They're mostly found in flooded grasslands... I don't think the water there would be hard.


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## Diana (Jan 14, 2010)

'Flooded grasslands' is not a description of the parent rock or soil in the area (which is where the minerals come from to make the water hard or not)
These fish are OK in a fairly wide range of water parameters. 
Calcium deficiency might play a role in a fish with the curved spine. 
I think internal parasites is a better possibility for a fish with a sunken abdomen. 

When both problems are present, you could try treating for internal parasites, but there is no treatment for a mineral deficiency that happened as the fish was growing. If the arched spine is from MB, you can try treating for this, but I think it is more useful to see if this fish truly has MB. Then you know if the rest of your fish have been exposed.


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## mathkid (Sep 26, 2011)

Well... I don't want to kill my fish just to check for MB...?

This fish has gained weight back and no longer looks skinny. It seems fine -- eating and swimming normally. It's now in a community tank with other fish but *not* with other CPDs. Maybe the other CPDs were bullying it...? Agree that CPDs are really slow about food. Mine won't go to the surface -- they wait for food to start sinking.

I have medicated flake now, and I've been getting all the fish used to the equivalent (non-medicated) flake, so I *can* dose if I need to. But no other fish have shown any distress, and this fish has been crooked for at least a few months (possibly forever and I just didn't notice). So I'm going to guess it was either born that way or had some kind of injury and is better now.

And they all lived happily ever after...


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