wild mbuna not eating, hiding

hi my name is victoria i just came across this forum unfortunately my first post is one of concern.

one of my wild male met zebra "manda" didnt eat today, he took in a bit of food then spat it out & went back in his cave, he ate & was acting normal yesterday.

i have been watching him closely all day , he is staying in his cave which is on the bottom of the tank in between 2 rocks.

he is in full colour & not gasping but doing occasional what i would describe as maybe burping!

he is almost sitting on the sand & no & again swims around the rocks to go back to his original spot.

as far as i can see he isnt being bullied at all.

he has been in my tank for approx 5 weeks & i quaratined him for 1 week prior to that.

my water stats are

ph 8.0
ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 50ppm

i have high nitrate out of my tap & have a nitate removal canister on order which i plan to put in 1 housing if a hma filter.

all other fish are eating & acting as normal.

shall i remove him to qt, any treatment?

any advise on what to do is appreciated,

i have had fish with similar symptoms on a previous occasion around 6 months ago accept they were gasping & had stringy feaces which the manda does not have either of those 2 symptoms.

all of these fish subsequently died in qt & frustratingly i never got to the bottom of what was causing it.

I treat all wild rift lake fish with metronidazole for 3 days . here's an article on bloat http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/malawi_bloat.php

I don't have much experience in treating disease, but the not eating always worries me and if it's not a female holding, bloat is what comes to mind. I think I would put the fish in the quarantine tank and start some form of treatment. If you've had fish die from this before, I'd try that Metro treatment.

Welcome to the forum.

Hi Victoria, welcome to RLC!!!

Any updates today? Hopefully he was just being shy. Keep us posted

Hi Vic and welcome to RLC !
Always very hard to do make a correct diagnosis like this. Hard enough when you have the actual fish in front of you some times. It can be a number of things. A wc cichlid is naturally even more sensitive. I would start off with a 50% water change and I would also put in some salt (1dl/100 liter). Also increase the tank temperature to 82-84 fahrenheit. Let us know if the fish gets better or gets a new symptom.
To run the tap water through a hma filter is a very good ide .

hiya,

i removed him from the main tank & put him in qt & treated with octozin as i think its better to act fast in this case rather than being sorry later.

to look at him you wouldnt think he was poorly, he is swimming around & coming to the front of the tank when i approach.

he has now got stringy white faeces, i offered him a spirulina flake to see if he was just being shy in the main tank but he took it & spat it out about 5 times before ignoring it which indicates he has a blockage as far as im aware.

so i am hoping i have acted in good time to save him.

all other fish are fine & not showing any similar symptoms although i will not count my chickens yet as i know bloat usually occurs at weekly intervals. 1 fish then a week lately another fish & so on.

all i can do is keep a close eye on all fish & my fingers crossed.

i have covered the qt tank with a towel to help relax him & keep him calm.

i have decided on a ro filter as this seems the only way i am able to reduce nitrates sufficiently out of the tap.

i noticed a few of my fish were flashing alot, mainly my big n.blues & a couple of others so i am treating the main tank with sterazin, i added the first dose yesterday which already seems to have made possitive results.

Welcome to the Forum Victoria. Sorry to hear about all your troubles but it seems your doing the best you can for your fish. Hopefully things will get better soon. I know it's heart breaking when they don't eat.

What exactly do you feed your fish and how often? I sometimes would give an ailing fish a little finely chopped cooked spinach when it seemed they wouldn't eat. They have an easier time swallowing it or maybe they just liked it . I'm not sure.

Once again, welcome to the forum and we look forward to pics of your finny friends. We just can't get enough of that here.