Bloated Sultan

[Grubby]

Ive had a Sultan pleco for the past few years. Lately (about a week) I noticed he is very bloated. Other than that he doesnt seem to be acting strange. Still eating, swimming, sparring, just like normal. But the bloating looks uncomfortable. I cut way back on feeding, thinking that maybe he had just eaten too much, but I think he has gotten bigger. When I do a search on this, I come up with swim bladder problems. I have been doing plenty of water changes, parameters look fine. The only change that I can think of was that I lost power for about a day before I noticed the bloating. The water temp went down about 10 degrees but then came back up when I got power again. He is in a 90 gallon tank with a bristlenose, a small vampire pleco, two jaguar cats and a some guppies. Plenty of filtration for the crew.

[MatsP]

Ok, so first of all, I doubt it's swimbladder problem - mainly because Loricariidae have no (or drastically reduced) swimbladder.

It may, however, be an internal infection, which is bad news.

I would also suspect that your power-cut has a bit to do with it. You may have lost some or all of your filter bacteria - which will stress the fish, and as we all know, stress reduces the health of the fish. Even if the only consequence of the power-cut was the drop in temperature, it can stress the fish quite dramatically.

The best approach is to double check the water quality and change water (50% or so) if there is ANY doubt that the water is not perfect in the tank. Even so, a water change certainly doesn't hurt - I've never ever heard of anyone saying "I made a water change and the fish locked poorly" [1]

[1] Assuming the new water is OK - I have heard of problems with water supplies where things that shouldn't really be in the water causes problems. But this is quite rare.

--
Mats

[Grubby]

Thanks Mat, I'll do some extra water changes and keep an eye on all the parameters.

[Daragh]

Hi

Sorry to hear about your sultan. I have no good news for you. I know someone that breeds zebras and other plecs and had two huge sultans that he was hoping to spawn, the male swelled up andafter a year or so looking horrible it finally died. I had a much smaller specimen, about 10 cm and it started swelling up, I tried several things without success and it died about three months later looking like a golf ball with a tail.

I have googled and read as much as possible on this and came across very little of help, it can be no conincidence that it seems to affect sultans more than anyone other pleco.

Daragh

[alpine]

i don't know much about plecos but when I suspect bloating in my discus I add epsom salt and it usually works well.
Hope everything goes well with your pleco ,
Roberto.

[Daragh]

I should have mentioned that the sultan I had and the other that I saw were not so much bloated as full of fluid, just under the skin, it did not appear to be inside an internal ogan, just under the skin. I suspect it is some sort of internal bacterial infection, though why it would only affect sultans I have no idea, also the large fish lived that way for about a year, so if it is bacterial it is very slow acting.