Altum Angel very bloated

[Amazon Sword]

Hey everyone, I apologise if this is in the wrong part of the forum since it's not related to discus, but I feel this is the better place to post this. So, here we go:

1.Problems : One of my F1 altum angels I've had for the past 5 months has been very very bloated for the past 10 days. (I got the whole group as tiny babies and now they're at least 7 inches tall, and I haven't had any previous issues with any of them ; they're with a group of wild discus)


2. Symptoms : Thankfully, the poor guy is ''just'' very bloated, to the point of it looking like a balloon that's going to pop. Appetite is still there, normal swimming, no outwards scales (so I don't think it's dropsy), and showing completely normal behaviour.


3. What medications/ treatments have you already tried and what were the results. Include dosage and duration of treatment : I let the guys unfed for 5 days, hoping that if it were constipation it would be a bit easier for him to get rid of the poop ; I also fed boiled peas to help with the possible constipation/indigestion. I dosed 2 teaspoons of epsom salts per 10g yesterday, and I've started feeding food soaked in epsom salt water today. So far I haven't seen any improvement at all and I'm starting to worry.


4. Tank size and ages, numbers and sizes of fish: The current tank houses 10 altums and 9 wild discus ; It's a 65 gallon (40in L x 16in W x 24in H). The altums are I would guess around 7 months of age and the discus are between 1 and close to 2 years of age. I understand this is very heavily overstocked, however this lets me feed a lot and clean a lot, and I've seen that all the fish have grown and are growing, even the really slow discus, so everything seems to be ok.


5. Water change regime: 25-30% every other day , aided by some very long pothos vines that help absorb quite a few of the organics . I don't change more or more often because I had some terrible cases with whirling which killed half my population and I'm now very afraid to change more...


6. How long has tank been running? Is it bare bottom? : The aquarium has been running for a year now, and is bare bottom.


7. Do you age your water? Yes, for about a day with no evident pH swing.

8. What type/brand water conditioner do you use? Continuum's ammonia and chlorine neutraliser


9. Parameters and water source;


- temp 82F

- ph 6,5

- ammonia reading 0

- nitrite reading 0

- nitrate reading ~10-15 ppm

What type of water or combinations of water sources do you use?

I use a mixture of about 20% R/O waste water and 80% pure R/O


10. No new organisms introduced in the past 5 months

11. I feed a variety of pellets with high protein, spirulina pellets, flakes, and sometimes FDBW. I feed quite a few times a day , perhaps even 8 , but in small doses. None of the fish have ever shown bloating or overly full bellies at all , and they all poop often and a lot.


12. Here's 2 pictures ; the one shows the fish that is currently bloated, and the other one shows how fat the others generally are.
Any and all help is much appreciated!
IMG_20191020_225315.jpgIMG_20191027_172754.jpg

[LizStreithorst]

You nailed it when you said that you knew that the tank was overstocked. Your tank needs to be way larger for all those fish. Your nitrate level tells that you are not doing enough WC. I keep mine at 5. It's best for Discus. Change more water or get a larger tank.

You are doing all the right things treating your Angelfish. Some people say that if it's bacterial it should be treated with Kanamycin. But I've never heard of it working.

[Amazon Sword]

The aquarium is undoubtedly overstocked ; they will be getting a bigger one within the next 2 months hopefully. The nitrates are a bit higher now than usual due to the fact that I haven't changed water in a few days because of all the epsom salt and pea stuff as I didn't want to do anything that might stress them in any way for any reason (I know, stupid of me) ; I tend to keep mine at 5 and below as well. I'm just wondering if there's anything I can do apart from what I've been doing so far. The fish is perfectly fine apart from the bloating, and I don't know if that is good or bad ... I'm starting to worry about the little thing

[LizStreithorst]

The only think I would do if you have not done it already is move the bloated fish to it's own tank and treat it there.