I have had an electric blue hap in a 55 gallon tank for about 4 months now, and all of a sudden he has stopped eating flakes. I feed them frozen blood worms and brine shrimp twice a week, and he eats that perfectly well. He appears healthy to me. He used to eat the flakes just fine, but all of a sudden, he swims over, eats a flake, spits it out, and swims away. Is this just him deciding he doesn't like it, or is it something that I should be more worried about? The flakes are Omega One. Thank you in advance!
Sounds like your fish has the dreaded malawi bloat. Not eating is the first sighn. They will also have white stringy feces. You need a bacterial medication like clout and you need to isolate him quickly. The disease can be hard to stop but If you catch it quick you can prevent it.
Bloat is usually caused by poor diet(usually too much protien), poor water quality, or stress. What other fish are with him? He is a carnviorus hap so I doubt it's diet.
I am no expert, but would not be so quick to medicate or isolate fish unless the isolation tank was of same water quality as main tank which in my view should be zero for ammonia and nitrite, and nitrAtes of 20ppm or lower. ph around 8.0. I might be tempted to withold food for a few days IF fish looked bloated. If not.. fish could simply be no longer interested in the flake food and I might offer chopped frozen krill,earthworms,crickets,and or a pellet food for a change ,and see if fish does not exhibit more interest.
I do hope the other fish are tough fish ,55gal ias a bit small for such a fish as the Hap.
Well I don't think that it is bloat, because he eats the bloodworms and brine shrimp fine, just not the flakes. Also, his feces look fine. The other fish are just yellow labidos, and they stay away from each other.
Ohhh well this changes everything. I thaught he had stopped eating all together. Idk why he descided to not eat flakes all of a sudden but I heard it's not uncommon. So I agree with 1077 in a potential diet chnge. Flakes really aren't for large cichlids anyway IMO.
Oh and one last note. Ahli is extremely hard to find in the hobby. You most likely have fryeri which is much more common.
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