Hi,
My algae eater died this morning, it wasn't looking to well the night before, it was looking kind of bloated and slow, so when i got up this morning i looked in the tank it was dead, as i have 4 zebra pleco`s and 6 queen arabesques in this tank so i was quite concerned so opened him up for a look and found lots of small pinhead sized balls, has anyone an idea what this is? i have put a pic of him in the link below.
http://www.petfish.net/forum/index.php? ... 0#lastPost
sudden death
Hi Hamish,
Yes those are eggs.
You mentioned on the other forum that they could not be eggs because you only had one of them. A female will still develop eggs if mature but only needs a male to fertilise them.
A few weeks ago , I had 2 discus spawn on a number of occasions, each time, the eggs were infertile. I found out why when I actually saw them spawning. BOTH of them were laying eggs !!!!!!!!
Regards,
Des.
Yes those are eggs.
You mentioned on the other forum that they could not be eggs because you only had one of them. A female will still develop eggs if mature but only needs a male to fertilise them.
A few weeks ago , I had 2 discus spawn on a number of occasions, each time, the eggs were infertile. I found out why when I actually saw them spawning. BOTH of them were laying eggs !!!!!!!!
Regards,
Des.
Something else that may help with a diagnosis; it's kind of hard to tell from the picture, but is the fluid the eggs are in clear? If not, and it has visible fragments of broken/decayed eggs floating around in it, this may have contributed to the fish's death. Sometimes a female fish that does not come into contact with a male can carry around eggs to the point that they actually die inside her. This can lead to septicaemia and eventually to the fish dying.
Val
Val
Hi Hamish,
I had a couple of these fellas years ago, mine were the naturally occuring wild colour and not the gold type which I think are selectively bred. I bought them as algae eaters and initially they were pretty good at eating algae, they soon discovered that flake and food tabs were much better and pretty much left the algae alone from then on. The temperature range that they should be kept at is between 74F to 80F if I remember correctly. It's more than likely that it couldn't take the temps in your zebra tank, that's if you have it up at 86F. I believe this is a likely explanation for its sudden death, fish kept out of their optimum temperature range will experience a greatly reduced lifespan.
Just a bit of friendly advice, please do not consider getting a replacement. My experience with the two that I had was not very pleasant. Whilst they were small they seemed to be ok with other fish but this soon changed as they grew larger, I found that my two became increasingly aggressive to the point where my clown loach wouldn't go any where near them. They literally terrorised the other bottom dwellers and would regularly chase each other around the tank. The final straw was when I noticed them feeding off the slime on the sides of my angel fish. I lost one of the angels due to the damage that they inflicted, their fate was pretty much sealed after that. I would definitely not risk having chinese algae eaters in with zebras or other bottom dwellers.
Regards.
Adam
I had a couple of these fellas years ago, mine were the naturally occuring wild colour and not the gold type which I think are selectively bred. I bought them as algae eaters and initially they were pretty good at eating algae, they soon discovered that flake and food tabs were much better and pretty much left the algae alone from then on. The temperature range that they should be kept at is between 74F to 80F if I remember correctly. It's more than likely that it couldn't take the temps in your zebra tank, that's if you have it up at 86F. I believe this is a likely explanation for its sudden death, fish kept out of their optimum temperature range will experience a greatly reduced lifespan.
Just a bit of friendly advice, please do not consider getting a replacement. My experience with the two that I had was not very pleasant. Whilst they were small they seemed to be ok with other fish but this soon changed as they grew larger, I found that my two became increasingly aggressive to the point where my clown loach wouldn't go any where near them. They literally terrorised the other bottom dwellers and would regularly chase each other around the tank. The final straw was when I noticed them feeding off the slime on the sides of my angel fish. I lost one of the angels due to the damage that they inflicted, their fate was pretty much sealed after that. I would definitely not risk having chinese algae eaters in with zebras or other bottom dwellers.
Regards.
Adam
