I wanted to share this success story with my fellow box'ers. Some of you know the history of these guys, but for those of you who don't, I'm going to document it here.

Back in late February 2008, I drove out to pick up some fish from a friend at a LFS. He had mentioned having some Tropheus Moliros that he had received in a large order that were very sick when they came in. He offered to let us have them since they were in such bad shape and he wasn't going to be able to sell them. He told me that when they had arrived they had a severe fungus which he had treated with an anti-fungal medication. Their eyes were almost completely covered with a white film and they wouldn't eat so they were very very thin. Honestly, I wasn't sure we'd be able to save them, but decided to give it a shot.

I brought them home and put them in a 55 gallon all by themselves. We started out treating the entire tank with Erythromycin for a few days. Then we switched to Tetracycline for a few days. Finally, I found some Tetracycline Gel-drops and made a paste out of Spirulina flakes and the Tetracycline medicine. I made little food/medicine balls and let them drop to the sand. The Moliros found the food/med and ate it right up. This is how they were fed for several days. During all this, we did 30% water changes 3 times a week. Blind fish are messy eaters.

They've gradually gotten better and better and have put on lots of weight and have brilliant color. They are still blind and I suspect they always will be, but we have a system for feeding that works great. We buy the Hikari Cichlid Excel MEDIUM pellets and soak them until they get soft and puffy. Then smush them just enough so that they will sink but stay large. The Moliros graze along the bottom of the tank and slurp up the pellets that they bump with their noses. It works!

We moved them out of the 'special needs' tank and into a 135g with some other Trophs.

Before - these are from the first day they came home to us.....

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After...

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We switched from erythromycin to tetracycline because I had read that erythromycin only stops the growth of bacteria, and tetracycline both stops and kills the bacteria. I now think this was incorrect. Well...I think that it just depends on how that information is presented. Both erythromycin and tetracycline work by inhibiting the growth of the bacteria, and both can kill bacteria if used in a high enough dosage, but they definitely work differently. I think switching to tetracycline worked for me because the erythromycin was being administered as a bath, where the tetracycline was added to food and ingested. I think this made a huge difference in getting the medication to the fish.

We still have these fish, but they live with our Cyps now. When our other Moliros began breeding, life just became too chaotic for these guys. They do much better in an environment where they aren't always having to 'watch their back'.