dead cichid?

Question

im not sure wich kind of cichlid it was, but i know it was african. i found him dead last night and it looks like there are little indentations around his head. ive had lateral line disease before and it is definantly not that. it looks like it could be scales pulled from the roots, but im leaning away from this. it didnt look bloated, and it was slightly chubby(as are all my cichlids) and ive had it for 3 months. it was in a tank with 13 other cichlids and 4 catfish and 4 plecos

Answer 1

Ours have that too. They got "hole in the head" and they had like a parasite that ate at their skin. This could definately be it. Sorry to hear about that.

Answer 2

Here are some things to try :

First, check your water parameters. I say this first because most people just assume that its some disease and all it is is their water parameters.

Second, check to see if it was just killed through aggression. Cichlids are known to just kill weaker ones. If you have 13 cichlids in a tank and it is not 100+ gallons you will definitely have problems.

Third, start slowly adding salt to your tank and raising the temperatures. If you water is good and the tank is big enough, and you still think you have a disease, this should help kill it off.

If you normally add salt to you water for conditioning purposes or the salt doesn't stop your deaths go find yourself some "Clout". That stuff will work wonders and that it will kill most diseases. Just be care full when using clout with "scale-less fish" like plecos and catfish.

Side note - I have two plecos and they are both 2 Feet long. Be careful with having 4 in one tank, unless their are the Pygmy plecos.

Hope that helps you.

Answer 3

You didn't mention whether or not those indentations or scale damage were present while it was alive. African cichlids typically don't get hole in the head disease (which is known to afflict Oscars among others).

A fish can be in prestine physical condition at time of death, but post mortem damage from other fish can degrade the physical state of the fish (i.e., the other fish pick and nibble at the dead fish for a hours until you discover it).

Impossible to really say what your fish died from without more info and accurate knowledge of how it appeared and behaved up to a week before it's passing, among a whole lot of other factors.

Answer 4

hole in the head disease, it was most likely an Oscar, they get that when they don't have a nutritious diet.