I'm totally devastated, what would have been my first spawn in 2.5 years (2nd in total) has ended in disaster. The female was trapped for a few days then today i had a wee look and noticed she didn't move and was looking very pale, on closer inspection turned out she died with 2 eggs hanging out of her and her fins were a bit messed up aswell. I had a hard job getting the body out as the male still thought she was alive and wouldn't leave the cave.
To have failed spawn is fair enough but loosing a female zeb at breeding age.....sad is not the word, anyway i'm off to perform a zeb funeral .
Thanks everyone, its just one of those things that can't be helped. Just wondering if anyone else has had a similar thing happen I know this cannot be prevented but I am curious as to what killed her, laying the eggs or perhaps the male got a bit over excited and killed her.
I have had only one successful spawning thus far and the female died a few days after the babies were out of the cave. She looked fine (no signs of fighting) so I have no idea what happened. There were no changes in water conditions to explain this and the babies and surviving male continued to thrive.
i think just like human. people die sometime in the old day due to difficulty of giving birth. nowadays those cases are gone. (better technology) there always a risk everytime they try to lay eggs i guess.