Red Lizard Whiptail catfish
 

My whiptail has a really swollen belly. He/she seems healthy enough, eating and flopping around the way it always has. The colour is fine. My water parameters are good, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 20 nitrate. The water is a little hard but it has never bothered it before and the other fish in the tank are fine. I give them a varied diet ... flakes, shrimp pellets, algae wafers, peas and courgettes. I'm not sure what the problem is. I've had it for about 6 months. Any pointers would be much appreciated. Thanks

Might just be over-eating; my loach are like this, I have cut back on the sinking foods. Do you have other substrate fish eating the food you drop in for the Whiptail? I have three of these, plus a regular Rineloricaria parva, but they compete with about 30 corys for food.

Nitrates at 20ppm...do you know why? Live plants and weekly partial water changes of 40-50% of the tank should keep these lower which would be better. Or are they partly in the tap water to begin with?

Byron.

Thanks for your reply Byron.

I have 6 corydoras and 2 reticulated hillstream loach. Also a couple of rabbit snails. My Betta eats the shrimp pellets too.

I have tested my tap water which measures 10 ppm. I have nitrax in my filter which is supposed to break up nitrates, I'm not sure how effective it is. I also use Seachem Prime. I have live plants in my tank and do 25% water changes twice a week.

My tank is just a couple of weeks old. I have just upgraded from two smaller tanks but have avoided a mini cycle by swapping over all the filter media, some of the substrate and all of the decor.

Edit: I am keeping the feeding to a minimum at the moment because of the new tank.