HELP-blockage of the gastrointestinal tract?

[russel]

I came back from the cabin today, to find my lion fish in horrible shape. I last fed him on thursday (3days later), and today his belly is soooo bloated that it looks like it is going to explode. Is there anything that i can do??? I can tell he is about to kick the bucket. he is breathing really hard, stressed out (red) and swiming vertacally with his head pointed up (he always points down)

The only thing that i did was added a piece of coral skeloton that had no life on it. It has been out of the ocean for a long time.

I have not checked my parimeters yet because i assume that the starfish and corals would be dead first. and they look fine now.

Thanks for any advice,
Russel

__________________

[Doug1]

Wow, sounds like a bloakage is a strong possibility, but I am not sure what if anything you can do for it, esp a lion
Hopefully someone else can chime in with an idea

[russel]

Thanks for your response.

No one from RC has any ideas, i'm starting to think that he's a goner. How long do you think it will be? I don't know if i should let him die in the tank because i don't want anything else to bite it. I would think that a large fish like him will unstabalize my whole tank. I would put him in the hos. but there is a true perc in there today.

Any sugestions??

[Doug1]

Hmmm I was hoping someone had an idea for a laxative or something that might help.. Kinda sounds like its not doing well at all. What species lion and how big is it, have you had it long?

[russel]

It is a Pterois russelli, about 8 in, had him for a year.

[Doug1]

ouch, hope it works out man

[russel]

R.I.P

Thanks Doug for trying to help, guess it was just his time to go.

Russel

[aliendomain]

Russel,
What was the last thing you fed the lion?
AlienDomain

[Doug1]

Darn Russell, thats really a shame, Lions are such neat fish and the russellii aren't real common compared to volitans
Like Aliendomain asked what was the feeding regiman for this guy? Knowing that might help us point out areas to watch for should you decide to get another one
Again, condolenses, its like losing a cat or dog when you have had them that long, Sorry man

[Mkelly]

Epsom salts may have worked. I used to use it to get rid of tape worms in Discus. While most of us old geezers use it to soak tired old bones it is a laxitive. It will also bring a fish out of shock. Don't quite know how that works but it does.

Sorry about your fish.

[Doug1]

MKelly, how do you administer epsom salts in a case like this?

[Mkelly]

You need two tanks 2 1/2 to 5 gallon work, if not two 5 gallon buckets. We all have these for our frequent water changes right? One tank gets the salt 1 teaspoon for the 2 1/2 2 tea spoons for the 5 gallon.
For shock put the fish in and he will start to come around depending on how bad the shock is. Soon as the fish comes around take him out and put em in the fresh water to recover. When it's swiming about normally you can put him back in general population or leave in the hospital tank.

I had a Discus get spooked one day and swim the lenght of the tank, 6' and smash it's self on the glass. These fish arent the sharpest knives in the drawer.

For worms I would leave him in till the worm passed. Then take em out. This usually takes about 24 hours. I would watch the fish closely usually keeping the hosp tank in the same room with me or checking on it frequently. Once the worm pass's, fish comes out and into a hosp tank to recover. Light feedings should follow.

You'd be amazed at the size of the tape worms a discus can hold. I had one was 6 inches long. BTW tape worms to me are the most disgusting thing on Gods green earth. And I have seen my share of disgusting.

Please note that to me this is an extream treatment and not something to be done half heartedly. I only did this with fish that were on the brink of death or serious injury and had nothing to loose by treating them thus.

I had a serious tape worm problem and couldnt figure out why my fish were dying and wasting away. The last thing I expected was tape worms. By the time I treated I had lost 10 of 12 fish. The last two I managed to save this way,but the fish were never quite right. You could tell something was wrong, a diseased fish's eye will continue to grow while the body is stunted. So you have a small fish with a big eye. It's not proportional to the rest of the body. Thats one sign. Usually another sign is what they do with food. They look confused by it. They want to eat but they don't. They swim to the food, try to eat and miss or, mouth it and spit it out.

Niether of them went on to breed either.


Discus being bottom feeders are espically prone to this since tape worm eggs fall to the bottom and are then ingested as the fish forage.

Mike

[russel]

aliendomain

he has been on shrimp, silversides, crab, ghost shrimp, crab meat, rosies, comets, and bloodworm. He was only fed two times last week the last one being a regular size comet.

two months ago he started fasting on all the different foods that i offered him. I have to give him feeders once a week so he will take the other food i offer him. (at that point he had gone 3.5 weeks without eating.

[Doug1]

Had it been on that assortment all along or was that a recent development?
Gold fish are poor food choice, they are missing certain amino acids and other vitamins that are present in SW fish. Long term feeding can result in fatty tissue buildup around the liver and other health problems.
ALso it may be possible that the last one he ate somehow got turned around during the swallowing process and managed to get stuck , blocking the GI tract. Really hard to say without a necropsy to determine cause of death.
Please don't take this as a scold, mearly trying to layout possibilities, hopefully helping head off a recurrence
I really am sorry for your loss, I had a dwarf hawaiian lion, D. zebra that I was really fond of. They can become kinda like oscars in there attention to their owners.

[russel]

I had him fully weened on to all sorts of foods. then one day, he didn't want anything. and then it turned out to be three weeks later when i broke down and fed him a live fish. They aren't stupid, but you can trick them part of the time. he got so that if i hadnt fed him a live fish within the week, he would refuse to eat. (i tried everything) the best was the fishing line. so for the last two months i have been feeding him silversides/shrimp with one live feeder. this whole time, if i was going to feed him anything. I had to walk over to the freshwater tank and figet with stuff, then walk over and feed him. he had one spot in the tank where he could see the other tanks and he spent most of his time in that spot. I use to get sick of him up there so i would put a paper towel on the side of the tank.

fun times.

russel