Constipated regal angel

[Viking_Reefing]

Well...crap! Literally.

I’ve had my tiny regal for about two weeks and its been doing great so far, eating most foods offered.
It goes completely haywire when I feed flakes and I suspect that this might be the cause of the problem.
I feed it flakes for the first time last Sunday and on this pic from Tuesday you can sort of see the beginning of the problem.

I didn’t think much of it at first other than “sweet, its got a little bit of a belly going, that’s great!” but yesterday I noticed that it’s it has got rounder and the anus was distended like it was trying to poo but nothing was coming out.

It’s not that severe as of yet so what are my options? My thoughts are that my choices are:
A. Stop feeding flakes and just feed algae based foods (nori, algae tabs, frozen formula two etc) and hope that it goes away on its own.
B. Try frozen pees, not to sure that it will eat that.
C. Dose epsom salt. I’ve never done that in a reef tank so slightly worried about corals and water parameters. Any advice here?

I’ll try and get a recent pic of the little guy when I get home from work.

 

[Frtdrmrose7]

Well...crap! Literally.

I’ve had my tiny regal for about two weeks and its been doing great so far, eating most foods offered.
It goes completely haywire when I feed flakes and I suspect that this might be the cause of the problem.
I feed it flakes for the first time last Sunday and on this pic from Tuesday you can sort of see the beginning of the problem.

I didn’t think much of it at first other than “sweet, its got a little bit of a belly going, that’s great!” but yesterday I noticed that it’s it has got rounder and the anus was distended like it was trying to poo but nothing was coming out.

It’s not that severe as of yet so what are my options? My thoughts are that my choices are:
A. Stop feeding flakes and just feed algae based foods (nori, algae tabs, frozen formula two etc) and hope that it goes away on its own.
B. Try frozen pees, not to sure that it will eat that.
C. Dose epsom salt. I’ve never done that in a reef tank so slightly worried about corals and water parameters. Any advice here?

I’ll try and get a recent pic of the little guy when I get home from work.

I would boil a pea and skin it and feed the innards to help get things going. Is he missing part of his tail?

 

[Viking_Reefing]

I would boil a pea and skin it and feed the innards to help get things going. Is he missing part of his tail?

Yeah, I’ll give that a go.
Yes, that happened the first day that it went in. My purple tang is a bit of an ******!
But it’s nothing to worry about, healing up nicely.

 

[ngoodermuth]

+1 on the boiled pea. You can dose epsom salt as well, it’s not harmful in a reef.

Have you seen any white-stringy poop? I might be worried about intestinal parasites/worms possibly causing the bloating.

As a precaution, wouldn’t hurt to feed 10 days of General Cure + Focus bound to frozen food. Just turn off all your flow and feed small amounts at a time, to make sure the fish are consuming it all.

 

[Viking_Reefing]

+1 on the boiled pea. You can dose epsom salt as well, it’s not harmful in a reef.

Have you seen any white-stringy poop? I might be worried about intestinal parasites/worms possibly causing the bloating.

As a precaution, wouldn’t hurt to feed 10 days of General Cure + Focus bound to frozen food. Just turn off all your flow and feed small amounts at a time, to make sure the fish are consuming it all.

Can’t the salt make my mg shoot through the roof?

No, no white stringy poo as far as I can tell. Parasites wouldn’t be my first guess since the bloating happened so fast. I think it would take longer for a parasite to multiply to the numbers needed to be visible like it is now.

 

[ngoodermuth]

Can’t the salt make my mg shoot through the roof?

.

It will raise it a bit, but it shouldn’t hurt anything.

 

[Viking_Reefing]

It will raise it a bit, but it shouldn’t hurt anything.

Super, I’ll try that!

 

[Viking_Reefing]

Didn’t have time to get the peas or the salt yesterday but I feed frozen formula two last night.
I will get the salt and peas tonight.

Some crappy pictures I took this morning

Do you guys have any idea if this is something that is often fatal?

Could it potentially just “work itself out” ,sort of speak, or is it something that can’t get better on its own? I would prefer to not do anything invasive that could potentially effect the rest of the tank.

 

[Dillon Briscoe]

I have had some success with feeding my fish bananas, and using Epsom salt, when I had a wrasse that would regularly look bloated.

 

[GoldeneyeRet]

If it wont eat peas, binding some kannaplex to frozen food using focus can have the same effect.

 

[Viking_Reefing]

If it wont eat peas, binding some kannaplex to frozen food using focus can have the same effect.

Unfortunately I don’t think it’s available here in Sweden.

I’ve got the peas and the plan is now to mix pea-paste with masstick and see if that works.

I also got some epsom salt from a supplement store but I’m worried about contamination even though it says 100% magnesium sulfate so going to use that as a last resort.

 

[Wunderpus]

+1 on the peas... That's what we always did back in the day and had great success with it. My regals and regals of customers would always LOVE to eat Ocean Nutrition Shark Formula, ZERO idea why, but it was what we could always get them to eat. Worth a try, too.

 

[Viking_Reefing]

Update

I did get it to eat som peas by mushing it together with masstick. It didn’t seem to do anything and it was still bloated when I went away over the Easter weekend.

Got back two days ago and it looks noticeably less bloated but it seems to have ripped something when passing the blockage, almost like an anal prolapse. It has also developed a strange bulge one one side of its belly.
Much less active during feedings (it does eat a couple of small pieces) and more sluggish overall.

Yesterday I had another incident where my CBB just freaked out for no reason what so ever and slammed in to the glass, injuring itself bad enough to force me to put it down.
If I lose the regal to some other stupid crap I don’t know what I’ll do [emoji58]

 

[Purpletang92]

The fish is bloated , when I had a fresh water system my cichlids would get this from time to time. Soak the food in epson salt don’t dose to the tank , act fast while the fish still shows interest in food. Try to stay towards a fish natural diet. I feed my regal mostly nori and algae pellets. I occasionally still soak my food in epson and turmeric powder and feed all my fish it helps flush their system.