electric yellow sick

Question
hi karen i have 20 fish in my tank /4 electric yellows but one of them has been staying on the surface and has done so now for several days and its stomach is shrunk not eating much i think it is a male any help would be great as i do not have a spare tank yet.greg

Answer
Hi Greg,
It's very difficult to diagnose any fish ailment without seeing the fish myself and a good detail on their symptoms and their environmental conditions.

However, with my best knowledge and your current description. Your Electric yellow's behavior would lead me to believe he may have internal parasites. Which are characterized typically by the fish losing weight drastically, they may or may not eat and if they do they still loose weight. Stringy white thread-like poo can be a givaway too but this symptom can also be a sign of stress.

Its possible he could also have an internal bacterial infection of some sort. But I wouldn't diagnose this as such for now.

I would go ahead and locate a food you can feed your fish that has garlic in it or better yet use garlic extract (you can find this at your petstore) (pre-soak) in your fishes food before feeding. Garlic is a great deterrent to parasites, is an appetite stimulator and has been used on discus fish over and over by breeders for getting rid of parasites and encouraging stubborn fish to eat.

When I treated internal parasites on one of my fish. I also treated the water with aquarium salt/Melafix (may help deter parasites) and I did daily 50% water changes. It may take some time for your fish to recover fully so make sure to give him some time.

Best of luck and I hope this helps!
Karen~