Fat Tiger Barb
- Thread starter BigCiX
- Start date
Sorry I don't have any Tiger Barbs...but one of my Danios...the littlest one...has a very bloated tummy. I'd be interested if anyone knows what could cause something like this...and if it will go away. (You said that your first one died...which kind of worries me)
I have many Tbarbs - in 3 different tanks in many different age groups.
When I got my first TBs - I got green TBs - I got 2. (Neophyte mistake - 2 Tbarbs. Big neophyte mistake. Should get at least 5 - 7 TBarbs)
One was much bigger, and one had a much brighter orange nose than the other. The bigger one is a female, the smaller more orange one is the male. As the female matured, her belly got increasingly wide. Almost triangle-ish, and there is a light mark on the underside that seems to define where the widening has been - like a stretch mark. I asked around, just like you are doing, and learned that this is what they do - the females grow wide as they mature. If that is what you are referring to - then not to worry. My triangular girls (and I would estimate that I now have about 18 girls) are alive and swimming, for well over a year now.
But - if you are saying that the belly is swollen - and that the individual scales are "proud" which is a fancy way of saying the scales are sticking out, perpendicular, to the fish - then it is most likely bloat / dropsy, and that is not a good thing. Bloat / Dropsy - what ever you want to call it - is a term used for a variety of conditions that have the same symptom - the protruding scales.
The root cause could be bacterial, viral or toxins but the problem is that kidney function is destroyed or impaired.
With all of the medications available - I have not ever had success trying to treat fish with dropsy. Even if you were able to identify what caused the diseased state - by the time it was resolved it would be too late - kidneys can't fully regenerate.
In this case - as with most cases - the best medicine is preventative medicine, which means proper food and plenty of water changes. So let's hope that the belly issue is due to a teenage TBarb with raging hormones and not infected kidneys...
When I got my first TBs - I got green TBs - I got 2. (Neophyte mistake - 2 Tbarbs. Big neophyte mistake. Should get at least 5 - 7 TBarbs)
One was much bigger, and one had a much brighter orange nose than the other. The bigger one is a female, the smaller more orange one is the male. As the female matured, her belly got increasingly wide. Almost triangle-ish, and there is a light mark on the underside that seems to define where the widening has been - like a stretch mark. I asked around, just like you are doing, and learned that this is what they do - the females grow wide as they mature. If that is what you are referring to - then not to worry. My triangular girls (and I would estimate that I now have about 18 girls) are alive and swimming, for well over a year now.
But - if you are saying that the belly is swollen - and that the individual scales are "proud" which is a fancy way of saying the scales are sticking out, perpendicular, to the fish - then it is most likely bloat / dropsy, and that is not a good thing. Bloat / Dropsy - what ever you want to call it - is a term used for a variety of conditions that have the same symptom - the protruding scales.
The root cause could be bacterial, viral or toxins but the problem is that kidney function is destroyed or impaired.
With all of the medications available - I have not ever had success trying to treat fish with dropsy. Even if you were able to identify what caused the diseased state - by the time it was resolved it would be too late - kidneys can't fully regenerate.
In this case - as with most cases - the best medicine is preventative medicine, which means proper food and plenty of water changes. So let's hope that the belly issue is due to a teenage TBarb with raging hormones and not infected kidneys...