Notice something unusual about your fish? It could be something or it could be nothing. Is it demonstrating consistently different behavior from what you’re used to seeing? See my post about behavioral signs of sick cichlid.
What about physical changes? A sick or injured cichlid often displays a plethora of physical changes. These include coloration changes, missing fins, torn fins, clamped fins, missing scales, open wounds, visible growths, white spots, red spots, or more. Sometimes, what you see is a just a product of stress. Identifying the source of the stress can be equally difficult.
If these physical changes weren’t present when you bought the fish, there is a good chance they manifested themselves from the environment you created for them – the water, tank mates, etc.
So what do you do? That’s a tough question to answer because you first have to identify what you see and then determine how/why it appeared. Sometimes what you see is temporary. For example, torn fins, missing scales, and color changes are often take care of themselves over time. Generally, visible growths and multiple spots don’t go away on their own. Sometimes fish are injured and/or sick but require no special treatment. Other times, you need to intervene either by separating them from tank mates, medicating them, or both.
Treatment for injured or ill cichlids is highly dependent on multiple variables and beyond the scope of this post. The point is knowing that most problems manifest themselves in something you can observe – physical changes or behavioral changes. However, the single most important thing you can do for them is provide them with good, clean water – free of ammonia, nitrite, and as little nitrate as possible.