Swollen Green Terror

Question
QUESTION: I have a 1 to 1.5 year old green terror, male, and his lower abdomen is swollen. To provide a bit of background he lived through an ammonia spike back in late December 2007 when my filter failed while I was on vacation. I lost a lot of fish to thay ordeal. He is breathing heavily but still wants to eat regularly and swimming normally. I can't seem to tie his symptoms to malawi bloat other than the swollen abdomen. He may be constipated from my feeding him too many shrimp pellets so I have stopped that for 2 days now. I have a lot of other African cichlids in the tank - mbunas,pair of ahlis,a pair of peacock cichlids, yellow labs, and a golden flower horn and they are all normal.  I have only fed him some tubifex worms in small quantities thinking he would pass the blockage but no luck. I have a 100 gallon tank and no quaratine option without buying another tank. Can adding a saly mixture of table and epsom salt give him a laxative? I am concerned about upsetting the ph in the tank though (instructions I have seen online say to mix them in equal parts and put a handful per 10gallons in but that seems less than precise to me) - I also have some clown loaches and a plecostamus that would not like a high ph. So looking for thoughts on options - he doesn't seem sick to me but obviously something is wrong.

ANSWER: Hi Brian,
 The one "home remedy" that I have heard about with some success is to get him to eat some thawed frozen peas.  They tend to clear things out.

 I would not recommend treating that whole tank with anything. I think you might create a lot more problems than you will solve.

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
  Cichlid Research Home Page <http://cichlidresearch.com>


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: If I were to acquire a "hospital" tank would you recommend other options?

Answer
Hi Brian,
 I have never tried the epsom salt thing but I hear of others using it. If you are going to do that, then definitely get a small hospital tank to try it in.

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
  Cichlid Research Home Page <http://cichlidresearch.com>