Bloated, gravid or fat?

[snowball]

Adult S. eupterus, age and sex unknown. Has swollen to this size in the past few months but behaviour appears normal.

[Birger]

Not the first eupterus I have seen that looks like it has swallowed a golf ball and needed to go on a diet.

Has anything changed in its tank, is it getting more food than it had before.

Birger

[Richard B]

The swelling looks isolated to the belly area & doesn't seem as bulky as a fish full of eggs can look - personally i'd take gravid out of the equation, leaving bloated or fat - what has been the diet this week (that you are aware of) & could anything unusual have been consumed?

[snowball]

Thanks for the replys. I have been able to find out a little more about the fish and the tank it is in.

This fish has been in the tank for about 6 months and was moved in with another S. eupterus of the same size, the other fish has remained normal size, ie. a typical healthy fat syno.

The tank is a well established 8' x 3' x 3' in the gaming room of a pub and houses a variety of larger fish, mostly African cichlids (frontosa, electric blues & yellows) but also silver dollars, silver sharks, clown loaches, a couple of hybrid synos and at least one S. ocillifer, plus a couple of Arius berneyi and a solitary Neosilurus ater. The co-existence of the fish could be described as peaceful and territorial disputes are confined to the electric yellows shuffling around breeding sites. It receives about a 40% water change every two weeks. The substrate is coral sand and decorations is mostly that Texas holey rock.

The pub staff feed the fish so actual food volume can only be estimated by how often the packets of food are replaced, this does not appear to have changed in recent months. They are fed once a day with Sundays missed and staff are under strict instructions not to overfeed - they have a measured scoop with which to dispense food. Given the number and type of fish in there I doubt there is any food left over for a fish to gorge themselves on. Most fish in the tank appear healthy in that they are not fat, but neither are they lean.

Being in a pub, everyone's an expert and so someone who once kept fish as a kid told the staff the fat catfish was pregnant and that it needed to be fed castor oil or it would die... They guy who cleans the tank assure them it was not the case and sent me the photo to follow up. I will make an effort to get down to the pub in question and have a close look at the tank. And the beer.

[Richard B]

Well synos don't have internal fertilisation so pregnancy is out!

Given the info, I'm thinking one of 2 things ...

Someone in the pub has put something in the tank the other fish didn't eat & this one wolfed it down (drunk customer scenario, seen this in the uk!)

There is some problem/infection causing the bloat

[snowball]

I never had a chance to go and visit the fish, but today it visited me! That is, it was brought to my doorstep in a bucket as a last reprieve - apparently there were too many customers complaining about the sick fish swimming upside down so they were going to put it out of its misery... don't get me started...

Anyway here it is and it's now in a 250l tank with a bunch of of other synos and plotos. Somwhat cramped and not ideal, but better than the alternative.

So it doesn't seem to be any worse than the photos I was sent of it a few months ago, it appears to be swimming normally and other than the stress from the move, seems to be fine. It does have a slightly funny shaped head and mouth (almost an under-bite), possibly from inbreeding. I'll let it settle and see how it goes, if everything seems okay then I will give it to someone I know with a large tank where it can live in peace.

[emacartoon]

That poor fish. How's it doing?

[snowball]

That poor fish has been in a nice big tank since last update and has lost its fat and is now a happy and healthy 'normal' size adult eupterus. Turns out when it was in the pub tank it had learnt to slurp all the floating cichlid pellets that got stuck on the weir grate, hence the rapid weight gain and constant inverted swimming near the surface.