Sick Lab

[mhsrunner]

I have two yellow labs alone in a tank. there were three but one died after showing no symptons of disease or hardship. after he died the dominant male started picking on his tankmate, and the past few weeks he has been forced to hide behind the filter and only be coaxed out at feeding time. he is very rarely able to swim around. hes dealt with this for weeks, but suddenly is sick. his stomach is slightly bloated and he looks like he has a read skin/blood time mass bulging out of his anus...bad times... what kind of disease might this characterize? his fins are often nipped and tattered from the larger fish. the dominant lab is brutal but i dont want to lose him, so if its a contagious disease should i kill the smaller fish and try to keep a single lab alive and healthy? thanks

[Jojo]

What size is the tank?

[Osiris]

What are your feedings to the lab? they are mainly a vegetrian cichlid.

[mhsrunner]

I wont have a 40 for a few weeks, but since there only juveniles the 20 is plenty of room, even with plants and hides. ill be moving them if this guy survives. ammonia and nitrites havent spiked at all. im feeding a flake food, but with this bloating ive cut back to every other day in case thats the cause. cutting back hasnt helped though.

[JustOneMore20]

What type of flake food? Mbuna like Labs are mainly vegetarian, as Marty stated above, they should be fed a mainly plant based diet like Spirulina flakes or Veggie flakes. They are susceptible to "Malawi Bloat" if not fed mostly veggie based diet.

Do you have alot of rocks in the tank? Yellow labs are rock dwelling cichlids, so you should have alot of rocks in the tank for them to hide in.