2 Cory's & 1 'Upside-Down' - All Constipated!

[singelis]

I have a community tank with 5 neon tetras, about a dozen female guppies (i started out with a pair that breeded), 1 glass catfish, 2 albino corydoras, and 1 upside-down catfish. I feed them HBH Flake Frenzy twice daily for the top feeders, and TetraCorydoras (that is the local Japanese version of Tetramin Tabimin, I believe) for the bottom-feeders every 32 hours. I also have a TetraPleco bottom-sinking tablet, all green, but NO ONE will eat those except bored guppies.

The cory's and the upside-down seem to be constipated. They've all got huge, dark bellys, and I can't say I've seen them pass waste. It appears to be a painful situation for the upside-down catfish. He will stay in the same place all day, and only come down once or twice during flake feedings to snag a flake or two. he doesn't touch any type of bottom-sinking food anymore.

I heard that you can feed boiled, shelled and mashed up peas to constipated fish. i tried this. everyone will pick at them except catfish, it seems, but guppies are pretty aggressive. i was hoping to catch them on to the Pleco sinking green tabs, but they ignore those altogether. i know a pure-flake diet can constipate fish, but when i add baby brine shrimp no one gets those but top-feeders. the glasscatfish is fine; his mate died and he thinks he's a guppy!

any ideas for constipated catfish? thanks,

singelis

[michael lai]

Hi Singelis,
I've moved your thread here so to get more response from the members. I've been keeping catfishes quite a while and I've not experience this. Maybe some of the members can help and I'll pick up a tip or two from here. Last but not lease, welcome to Aquatic Quotient! Have fun ...

[mickthefish]

ive not used it myself, but a friend who keeps and breeds rift valley fish swears by epsom salts for this problem, if you use it i hope it works for you.
mick