# Fluval Bug Bites and bloat?



## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

I feed this food as well, but in rotation with other foods. 
How often do you feed this food and what other foods do you feed. 

What symptoms do you see in your fish? Can you be more precise?
How long have they had these symptoms?
How long does it take before symptoms of "bloat" start and death occurs?

What are your water parameters: ammonia, nitrite, nitrates. 
Internal parasites can manifest themselves in an aquarium long after a four week window.


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## FranklyFish (Jan 4, 2019)

Nitrate <8ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
gh 75ppm
kh 80ppm
ph 7.2
temp 74

Every week that I check, even after a water change, none of the variables changes except for nitrate goes down to 0ppm. I do not have an ammonia test. I have never had a problem with ammonia in the past. I have an FX4 with probably 1500 grams of bioballs and a lot of lava rock as well as a decent amount of carbon and a ton of hornwort and a lot of low req. plants and I do not use any ferts.

The last thing i added was a farlowella probably 4 weeks ago or more. Everyone else has been in there for anywhere from 2 years to a few months. And the white clouds are acting like everything is fine. The 3 small ones are swollen in the belly. One might say they looked like they were carrying eggs but it seems unlikely that 3 of my white clouds are pregnant and a glowlight tetra. The glowlight tetra is very swollen. The tail section is fine but his whole belly looks like its going to burst. Its belly is turning white. Was fine the past few days but today seems to be not normal. I watched the small white clouds eat the peas but the glowlight wasn't interested.

I feed once a day. And one or two days a week I may skip feeding completely or do a very light feeding. Pretty must stick to fluval tropical bug bites, both small and medium fish variety's as well as a slow sinking aqueon tropical pellets. And then some sinking shrimp pellets for the dwarf frogs and yoyo loaches with the occasional veggie/algae disk as a treat for the ottos, snails, hillstream loach, farlowella, and shrimp.


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

A purely prepared, pellet/flake food diet makes the likelihood of issues like bloat more common. 
These foods can be eaten by fish and swell in the stomach; leading to obstructions in intestine and secondary bacterial issues. 

I would alternate feedings of prepared foods with a frozen food such as brine shrimp or dahpnia. 

I would recommend trying an epsom salt bath. Epsom salt works as a laxative as well as helping to alleviate any swelling in abdomen. Use non-scented, die-free epsom salt @ the rate of 1/2 tsp per 10 gallons- directly into aquarium .


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## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

Sometimes we need to get down to how we each use the word "bloat" as it can make a great difference. Are you speaking of the disease or simply that some of the fish appear "bloated"? Careful thought may help as some fish will simply gorge until they appear bloated while there can certainly be bloat as a disease.


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## FranklyFish (Jan 4, 2019)

Well I think it is an issue related to constipation. I was mostly making the post to see if the issue is common or known with fluval bug bites as I doubt it is a parasite. Its only on the small fish which leads me to believe that it is intestinal blockage. All my glass catfish are fine as well as the bigger glowlights, all the rummynose, and the bigger minnows. I don't have a quarantine tank set up at the moment as I tore it down after an ich treatment a few months ago. I have been wanting to live feed daphnia and start my own colony but havent ordered any and havent found any locally. 

I am going to feed peas for 3 days and see what happens. It could be a parasite but I really hope and dont think it is.


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## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

My experience with Bloat is from keeping African cichlids and the causes are still open to debate and I might assume there are actually more than one cause. Bacterial, fungus, constipation due to the food used? all are debated but when I see bloat, it is in my adult fish and it is often one single fish among a group which are all fed the same food and one will suffer while the rest do not. I have to assume that it is more complex than simply the wrong food. It is often mentioned that feeding African cichlids too much protein may be a cause but I doubt that as I use the same food for months/years without change and suddenly one fish may have a problem. 
Treatment is about 50/50 when I find one which has actually stopped eating. Early stages, they seem to want to eat, will take in food but it comes straight out as they are unable to move it on down and as it progresses, the mouth will no longer close fully due to swelling that can be seen through the open mouth. At that stage cure is rare for me. 
But one thing seems to be almost always true. When I see bloat on any of my fish, it is when I have been slacking a bit on my tank work and water is not the best. 
The whole is that I feel bloat is very much present at all times, something like the flu for humans, but it may only hit when the fish is weakened by stress or bad water. I no longer try to treat for bloat but simply move the affected fish to QT, where they may survive with better water and I work harder to maintain the rest in better conditions.


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## FranklyFish (Jan 4, 2019)

Yeah, I have kept glass catfish, ottos and dwarf shrimp for the past 3 years and never once had a single problem. I get some glowlight tetras, white clouds, and rummy nose tetras and seem to run into all sorts of problems with these "easy" fish when some people cant keep ottos and glass cats alive. I had ich probably 3 months ago now and just treated by increasing the temperature and cleaning the sand heavily. The tank stays super clean with the FX4 and all the plants. Its a 75 gallon tank with a few schools of rather small and undemanding fish so maintenance is not that bad and I use RO water mixed with tap water at around a 4/1 ratio.

Sometimes I wish i never got the tetras and minnows! Hopefully the peas help clean them out and get everyone better. My best GUESS is that the bug bites are a high protein food and the smaller ones were eating too big of pieces and got backed up. When feeding peas today I watched the smallest white cloud go after the biggest boiled pea chunck and it just swam around with it hanging out of its mouth. I couldn't locate the swollen glowlight. I am going to do a water change and vacuuming today to get rid of the leftover peas. Some of the fish are not very interested in eating the peas but everyone seems to go crazy for the bug bites. I am not going to feed anything but the peas for 3 or 4 days and hopefully that will save the white clouds.

I just really hope it is not a parasite.

Is 1 tbs of Epsom salt per 20 gallon shrimp safe? I do have some Epsom salt in my house already. I could add it into the water change tonight as long as its shrimp and snail safe.

Well just incase it is a parasite i removed the 4 fish that seem to be having the issues and put them in my 3 gallon "cookie jar" tank with a sponge filter, heater and a ton of hornwort from the main tank. The sponge is not cycled but I used 100% tank water after the water change plus with all the hornwort there should be enough to get the sponge filter going. They seem to be acting fairly normal. In the main tank I fed peas when i got home from work and then 5 hours later I fed some of the smallest fluval bug bites. I have found a ton of posts asking similar questions about this issue. One was even talking about it happening after switching to bug bites too so I am not sure if thats the problem or not. But hardly any of them have any answers as to what exactly it was and no follow up as what happened to the fish. I will update this when I reach a conclusion, positive or negative, that way if anyone 6 years from now stumbles upon this they hopefully have an answer.

I wonder how much and how i can measure out Epsom salt for a 3 gallon tank?


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## kgbudge (Feb 8, 2019)

FranklyFish said:


> I wonder how much and how i can measure out Epsom salt for a 3 gallon tank?


You can make up a solution with clean water, then use part of that. If the recommended dose is a teaspoon in twenty gallons, but you want to dose a three gallon tank, measure out twenty teaspoons of water and dissolve a teaspoon of Epsom salts with it. Then put three teaspoons of the solution in your tank. If you don't need the rest, it's not a huge loss -- water and Epsom salts are cheap in those quantities.

If you can't get the Epsom salts to all dissolve in twenty teaspoons, double the amount of water and the dose.


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## FranklyFish (Jan 4, 2019)

Good idea! Epsom salt is really cheap. I already have some here that my wife likes to use as a body scrub when she takes a bath. Ive only seen her use it once though haha! I am fairly certain it is unscented and just plain Epsom salt. I will have to check tomorrow as it is past my bedtime. They are still swimming around, they dont seem to be as active as their counterparts but they do not seem lethargic. If they don't show any improvement I will add some epsom salt. 

Thanks for your guys input!!!


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## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

I've been around living things of all kinds for a long time and there seems to be one thing that fits for all and it can really change how we may want to stock our tanks. 
If we look at other animals like rabbits, dogs, and elephants, we might not see much in common but if we look closer, we see the animals that breed rapidly and in great numbers will tend to die easy and quicker! So if we move that thinking over to our tanks, we may see the same things? Evolution has a way of dealing with an over population in any one species so the fish who breed rapidly and in great numbers, will often die easy and in greater numbers than other species which breed less and die less! We often see it as something we did wrong in the tank but any old farmer can tell you what happens if we put too many chickens, cows, horses or humans in any given space. They tend to die in large numbers for any number of reasons! 
I plan my tanks to hold a reasonable number of any fish but I also hedge my bets against having fish die by choosing fish who breed in smaller number and die less quickly! So if I need to stock a small tank, I do not go for the cheap, easy fish who die quickly but choose the small fish who may only have spawns of 20 rather than 120. 
That often leaves me choosing cichlids with a special love for African cichlids as I can choose the smaller ones who do only have spawns of 20 and they also fit my hard alkaline water best.


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## FranklyFish (Jan 4, 2019)

I grew up on a livestock farm with 4000 pigs and 400 cows. Have had just about every kind of legal animal a person can own growing up haha! I really wanted some nice schooling fish but to my disappointment is that it seems almost no freshwater fish are a true schooling fish. One of them died while I was at work but the super bloated tetra and the other two white clouds seem to be doing much better. I added a tiny bit of epsom salt to the 2 gallon and have only offered peas to them. They seem "happy" from as well as i can tell. The one that died was not very bloated at all so who knows. The white clouds do look different than most I have seen. They almost look inbred as right where their heads meet their body there is a defined angle which i never saw on most white clouds. This could also be a reason. 

Growing up we always had to be very careful to not inbred and to make sure that the gene line was strong and healthy by using quality males to strengthen the bloodlines. But as nature would have it there is always the opportunity for unknown recessives to pop up and cause a life shortening or ending defect.

Only time will tell. Hopefully my hypothesis is correct as the greedy little ones literally swallowed more than they can chew and a little fast will clear them up! Maybe this is a warning to anyone who raises fry or keeps smaller fish to not use this product or limit its consumption? 

I will say after i started feeding it all the fish had a visible coloring increase and looked really healthy. So i think i will stick with it. I would like to make one of my empty 20 gallon longs a daphnia/shrimp factory and then supplement feedings with live daphnia.

I really appreciate those of you who took time to give their input! I have no idea how this glowlight has not exploded. When i first noticed him i thought he had ate too much and just needed to digest his food, but it got to the point where is stomach was so swollen that he looked like he had ate an another tetra and the entire thing was in his stomach!

Here is a picture of him now. He is noticeably less swollen and has had some of his color turn back up.

https://photos.google.com/u/1/share/AF1QipO0DQ0ls_d21R-vo37cxuwQwAI4Q2c3xZBLHBRWsR3ENmOf-LkFQuoCtqx8DWwGjg/photo/AF1QipOZCPognIPwNt_rRh25co6kCBB9NnHZJX8lm4Gz?key=TFpQZU5GbFpJelVBTlh3ZFlwRWxhSy1hdFNrMjBn


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## asliceofkate (Nov 3, 2018)

Also you can soak the food in water for a bit before feeding. I see this recommended for bettas who are supposedly more susceptible to bloat. From what I understand bloat is often either swallowing dry food that then swells and expands in their stomach, and by swallowing small bits of air, and since they can't fart there's not an easy way for them to get rid of that air.


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## FranklyFish (Jan 4, 2019)

Well that glowlight has some green poop lastnight. So I assume the peas must be doing something haha. I really didn't think he was going to make it but it looks like he might after all. Yeah I've thought about soaking the pellets. I've had fish for the last 10 years and I've never had an issue with boat. But these are the smallest fish I have ever kept so maybe they are more susceptible. They were all juveniles when I got them. Most of them just over a 1/2 inch at the time of purchase.


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## haralds (Jul 19, 2009)

Watch out for overfeeding. A planted tank provides a lot of opportunity for food in between.
I have dropped down to feeding very sparingly once a day skipping 2-3 days a week.

Fish are thriving with that. I also have a bunch of shrimp and several snails to help clean detritus.


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

haralds said:


> Watch out for overfeeding. A planted tank provides a lot of opportunity for food in between.
> I have dropped down to feeding very sparingly once a day skipping 2-3 days a week.
> 
> Fish are thriving with that. I also have a bunch of shrimp and several snails to help clean detritus.


 You need to be very careful with this. Many of the fish we purchase at the LFS are juveniles, not adults. 

They are farm-raised and sent out to vendors as soon as they are of an age that they can safely be transported. 

In other words, adult fish are rarely what we see in stores unless they are wild-caught. 



Actually, I think no fish should be fed only 4-5 days a week. The most important criteria for fish to combat environmental stress is health from adequate nutrition.


Yeah, Ive heard the often repeated "Fish go without food for days..." This is one of the most repeated and misunderstood sayings in fish-keeping. These occurrences ( of fish not eating for days)"have contexts" that have nothing to do with the closed-systems we keep in our homes. 



Of course there is also the opposite problem: overfeeding. 

Both a detrimental to fish health. 



The best thing you can do for your fish is to feed a _varied _diet daily ( as much as they need and no more) that continuously supports their health and immunity. 



A diet made up of 1 processed food is an inadequate diet. Add to that feedings only 4-5 days a week--- unhealthy fish.


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## FranklyFish (Jan 4, 2019)

I feed fairly lightly as probably half my stock are mostly herbivores. But maybe it is still too much. But I always skip at least one day in the week. I have maybe 10 glowlights, 8 rummynose, and 8 white clouds, 3 yoyo loaches, 8 glass catfish and two african dwarf frogs. These are the only stock that really even requires food in the tank (75 gallon). Sometimes I wish I would have went with less variety but overall I do enjoy how each fish looks. The yo yo loachs are just there too keep the unwanted snail population in check.


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

You have been misinformed- none of your fish are herbivores.
So when the snails are gone you will be returning the loaches?


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## FranklyFish (Jan 4, 2019)

The glowlight ended up dying but the other two white cloud minnows are still alive. One is still bloated. He shoves anything he can into his mouth. Even plant matter that is floating around in the tank. It was definitely caused by the food. I also only feed once a day and probably average around 4 or 5 feedings a week. I feed the smallest size of the bug bites but I also feed the bigger sized ones as well for my glass cats a my cuckoo catfish as well as the adult white clouds. I think the biggest problem was that i managed to get some rather small and young fish. It has been fun to watch them grow though. I am wanting to set up a shrimp and daphnia tank but still haven't gotten around too it as there is a slight possibility that I will be moving again in 6 to 10 months.


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## PlantHaul (Apr 26, 2020)

*100% Fluval bug bites causes constipation*

I used the Fluval Bug Bites insect larva betta formula flakes and my betta was lethargic and always at the bottom of the bowl. I noticed poo balls (yes balls, the size of pearls) that looked like rabbit poop coming out of a little itty bitty tiny betta. I seriously don't know how he did it but he did (poor thing). Then i randomly noticed a bug on the floor and decided to feed it to him. Instantly he was swimming around right after eating and appeared to have more energy.... the next day his poop was normal. I got my betta fish back!!!


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