Electric blues ... making me blue !!!!

[Ulysses048]

I have lost two female electric blues from my breeding colony in the last two days ... and I don't know why !!!!
They die slowly - swimming weakly near the top and the one that died this morning had a really sunken belly .... this tank gets fed twice a day and the blue colony is in with a electric yellow colony in a 6 ft tank with two sponge filters and an external - so filtration or oxygen is not the problem.
I was beginning to think it could be an intestinal worm problem - but on advice from another fishkeeper, I should may be considering a tummy bug which eats the food before the fish can digest it.
Has anyone any ideas on what could be happening to my blues ???
Regards

[GTR73]

Can you provide more info - how long they had the symptoms? Were they still eating? Did they show loss of energy from the beginning or only towards the end.

I've had a similar problem with all Malawians and lost a large male Venustus last year to "sunken stomach" syndrome. This year I've had one peacock and one Crabro with it, and I treated the entire tank twice with STERAZIN parasiticide over a few months. Now both fish have recovered and seem quite healthy.
However could be any number of problems, as when I researched there were heaps of possibilites - from basic under-feeding, to intestinal parasites, to a bacterial inbalance in their digestive system.
Even though the Sterazin seemed to work, it was very frustrating I couldn't actually pin-point it, short of getting a vet to do a biopsy and lab tests! But I found plenty of other people on the net who'd encountered a similar problem.

[Ulysses048]

The blues had been at the top of the water for a few days before I lost the two females... and the remaining blues in the colony still tend to frequent the top section of the tank as do my blue fry in another tank !!
Underfeeding is definitely not the problem - I feed twice a day and the blues are hungry feeders.
The electric yellows in the same tank are not showing any symptoms of stress and are in fact, breeding regularly.
I am leaning towards poor water quality - do you think the external canister filter and two sponge filters are sufficient?
I do 40% water changes every week - I put an internal filter in to see if that would make a difference, but it appeared the cichlids were upset by the stronger water flow.
What symptoms did the fish you had with "sunken belly" syndrome show.
Regards

[GTR73]

My Venustus was the dominant male in the display tank and once he became inflicted he was noticeably weaker, not so aggressive, not so active. Therefore the other larger males in the tank began harassing him and it went downhill from there. He still ate no problems but the underbelly kept shrinking anyway.
Similar for the Crabro and peacock (Aulonocara Korneliae) - not as active and the Korny lost his colouration and would "hide" in the top corner of the tank all day, but they were both still veracious eaters. The Crabro would hang around the top also. Maybe the surface loitering has something to do with lack of energy and they're not able to get enough O2 into themselves???

Interestingly the Korneliae basically stopped growing at about 3" when it became inflicted, and amazingly in the last couple of months has started to grow again (now about 4") since becoming healthy. All these fish had the severely sunken stomach for a long period - up to a year with it - so the Korneliae was basically stunted for at least a year.

After a course of the Sterazin however these two fish come back good, but I was too slow for the Venustus. Now I have an Lwanda with it - previously confident and beautiful colouration. But now sunken stomach, not very active, lost colour and gets picked on. This weekend I'm going to place him in a spare 2ft tank and treat him for a few weeks. Hopefully he'll come good too.