FH died yesterday.

Our flower horn (hence, FH) yesterday. Our two-year old flower horn died. My sibs and I had several differential diagnosis:

1. Swim bladder disease. His tummy grew bilateral masses on each side. We noticed this a week ago, but dismissed the idea that there might be something wrong. It might be a normal variant for these fishes. Then, he started to swim asymmetrically. He also had difficulty swimming to the surface, which never happened before. I used to put several pellets of FH food and he would rush excitedly to his meal, until 4 days ago. He was also getting paler and paler each day.

2. Dropsy. I consulted this web page about flowerhorn diseases and according to the website, you should consider dropsy if the scales are bulging outward. FH's scales are bulging out right on the tail area. Treatment should be easy with an antibiotic. But now I guess it's too late.

3. Depression. He swims alone in the 50-gallon tank we keep in our patio. I am not too serious about this consideration, though.

Yesterday, I was discussing the treatment I found out in the net. FH is becoming weaker and weaker each day. When we woke up yesterday morning, he was swimming upside down. Obviously, we should take action or lose him forever. I told my sister to buy some antiobiotics for him but it was too late. At 10:00 last night, he died. I felt really bad.:-(