My Red Zebra died today. I noticed he was hanging out behind the filter intake last night, and he has been getting the short end of the stick in the pecking order recently so I took him out this morning hoping to give him away or take him back to the lfs rather than have him die. This afternoon i took him out of the bowl and put him in a plastic bag to take to the lfs, and I noticed that his anus was red and there was what looked like red hemorrhaging or sores on the bottom of his belly. I took some pictures, I need to know what this is/could be so that I can treat my tank before any other fish start to get sick! My JD has been hiding for weeks, with a larger than normal belly, but he eats vigorously(blood worms) every night and is not shy about defending his "cave".

I feed two cubes of bloodworms and a shrimp to the tank after "lights out" (except a blue light) to make sure my ghost knife, pictus cat, and sunshine pleco get some protein. I always feed the Cichlids Hikari gold pellets before hand to minimized their seemingly unending appetite. Unfortunately the JD has this figured out and ONLY comes out to feed after the blue light is on, so his diet is basically blood worms and pieces of shrimp. The only discrepancy I have been able to find is that maybe the zebra got sick from eating too many blood worms (he was an aggressive eater). But I am more inclined to trust the opinions of our members than random web pages about fish.

I have posted some pictures, any help to prevent any more fish death/disease would be appreciated!!

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His stomach profile was not really much different.

Fishes, in general are Heart-breakers. If, negative health issues are not present or obvious - One day, they are ok - active. The next, may be dead or on its way out.

yup

i just want to make sure i do everything i can to make sure no one else gets whatever he had!

(i do two water changes per week, with one of them always 50%)

Zerc - it's entirely possible that he was simply eating too much of the wrong thing. Mbuna digestive systems are designed specifically for a mostly herbivore diet. Unfortunately their brain thinks most anything is good eating, so they snatch up large amount of high-protein foods when available. This frequently leads to digest tract failure and dead fish(es). To be honest, I wouldn't recommend housing fish together that can't live on the same diet or don't naturally gravitate toward the food supply they're supposed to have.

Sorry about your fish there Zerc.

Well crap, 1 week later and I notice my firemouth hanging out at the top of the tank, i went over to see and he swam away, so I thought it was fine. Just found him after dinner stuck to the filter intake... very dead. No signs of aggression that I can tell, but the same symptoms as the last fish. My only consolation is that none of my "big" fish have gotten sick. Just the tank fillers.

I already have a UV filter to get rid of parasites proactively.

I feed pellets twice a day, and drop in 2 cubes of bloodworms after lights out. I have not added any fish in at least a month, and the two that have died I have had since may. Any ideas?