Zach i love your choice of fish, very nice!!!

thanks karrie.

cocol man how much did u pay?

about $15.00

nice buy!

bl man. poor duboisi

Are you haveing water problems ? Do you have a lurking killer in their midst ?

I am so sorry. I hope you get it cleared up. Beautiful fish.

hope you find the culprit..

sorry to hear that you lost one. Guess I have been lucky so far haven't lost any of mine yet. Hope I never do!

the same happened to mine at the same size.

You mentioned stringy feces. Did you treat for bloat? One of my Trophs had white stringy feces a couple of days after purchasing them so I soaked some of their food in a flagyl solution. Luckily they all ate it and I never had any losses. Touch wood!!!
Sorry for your loss, I hope the rest will be ok.

Mine too the same size ...I was gutted I loved this fish .

RIP

bummer sry zach

Yeah Zack, it sounds like you have "bloat" in your tank. Tropheus are tricky fish, as they are succeptible to this disease. They are very touchy about diet and water quality. Chances are the affected fish are not eating. Feed some medicated food to the ones that are, and treat the tank with Bakto-pur direct in tablet form from Sera. this is the most effective med I have found, don't wait, do it as soon as you can. Eliminate feedings for the next while as fish don't seem to get it if they don't eat. Sometimes the best thing to do is remove the affected fish before it spreads. Imo it is spread via the stringy white feces. I have seen this disease many, many times. Most of the times it is brought on by the wrong food. What are you feeding these guys?

Either bloat or not feeding correctly

I thought bloat was caused by fish eating food off the surface of the water and getting excess air into them?

The term "bloat" is a disease manifested by these symptoms
1st: the fish starts to hide, and lose interest in food, you may see it clamp one of it's pec fins agaist it's side from time to time.
2nd: The breathing will get heavier
3rd: the feces will turn stringy and white.
4th:The fishes stomach will take on a bloated appearence, even though it may not have eaten in days.
Imo it is symptomatic of a number of problems. It can be either bacterial or protozoan in nature. Or a combination of both. It is very difficult to treat in my experience.

little bit of a silly question but can plecos die of bloat?

the only fish I have ever seen with bloat are haplochromine (Tropheus, Mbunas, Peacocks,and the odd "hap")I've never seen any "lamps" julies, SA or CA cichlids with it either. Definately never in plecos.

Thanks james

My Cuban cichlid , had a bloat.
They are from CA.

You learn something new everyday.

I do agree with you, that the fish you listed above is the one who got bloat the most. No surprise it’s usually called Malawian bloat.

Hey Zach here is a good article written by a guy from the local aquarium club http://www.dras.ca/articles/articletropheus.html It should help

Super nice trops.:-)