The Ups and Downs!

[alevans]

Not posted for a while due to work commitments but I thought I would share my woes!

Last year one of my Zebra colonies produced a very healthy group a fry, sadly for various reasons some didn't survive but some did .

About six weeks after the spawn I found the mum completely beaten up and sadly dead

Interestingly she wasn't the largest female in the group but she spawned!


Now four months on and no with no further spawns I yesterday discovered 2 seriously battered and dead males I assumed that they had got into a fight together and sadly killed each other

Last night the big female entered a males cave Was it to be a spawn or a fight? Well sadly the answer was the latter and I now have a bearly alive bashed up male. I would post a picture but I think we've all seen enough gory pics of murdered Zebras so I'll spare you and it the distress

Hopefully he'll will pull through but I'm very doubtful.

So the plot is now complete.... The Beta female spwans and the Alpha female doesn't notice, but does the 2nd time round and kills the Beta.

The Alpha female desparate to spawn finds 3 in-adequate males and beats them up.

What to do?

Sadly for no linked reason (separate tank) one of my 3 inch Gold Nuggets dropped dead. No damage, no sign of injury or illness Although when I removed him there was some sort of mucus arround it's mouth - is this normal?

So there you have it! Many tears in the Evans houshold

[Frontyking]

I'm very sad to hear about your misfortune alevans. I hope you get back on your feet real soon. I know what it's like to lose fish in a big way actually. New years day, 40 degrees celsius weather, and over 1500 fish in my garage perished due to the temp rising over 60 degrees in there.

Good luck mate.

Nick.

[Plastic Mac]

Sounds like it's been a pretty bad time for you and your zebra's. I hope you get it sorted soon.

Do you think there are any other factors involved possibly, such as the amount of space in the tank, not enough caves or other zebra's reaching adulthood etc?

As for the gold nugget. From what I've heard and experinced they are pretty hard to keep. Not sure about the mucus issue..how long had you had the fish compared to the other gn's you have?
I had one a couple of years back in my main tank and, well after a couple of months I never saw it again...still haven't found any clues as to what happened. It's now filed under M.I.A.

[Jojoyojimbi]

still haven't found any clues as to what happened. It's now filed under M.I.A.

another case of alien fish abduction, i've currently got a 5.5g on my desk with cherry shrimp and sparkling gouramis, and one of the gouramis was recently abducted with no trace at all

[alevans]

Sadly the zebra didn't make it

The post mortem on the Gold Nugget was inconclusive, no parasites, no infection, no abnormal tissues, no real findings.

I have adopted a dangerous but hopeful cure to the murderous female zebra, I have provided her with my 3inch alpha male from another colony.

As for space, six fish share 500 litres with no shortage of hiding places.

I guess she just has a need to spawn.

I'll keep you updated as best I can whilst zooming around the world!

_______________________________________________________________

Nick I can't imagine what you felt like on New years day - truely awful

[McEve]

I have adopted a dangerous but hopeful cure to the murderous female zebra, I have provided her with my 3inch alpha male from another colony.

Good ideaq. If you have enough hiding places I think I would separate out the out of control female. I had to do that to a female once, the one that changed its pattern after fighting. She worked much better in the other colony, no deaths since.

It would appear to me that Zebras actually have dislikes and likes

[Alistair]

RE: the Gold Nugget.

When I worked in my LFS, we had several cases of the fish keeling over for no apparent reason, there were no signs of disease or damage to the fish and the water perameters were spot on, it just appeared to be one of those things(?)! The manager stopped getting the fish in in the end due to the dissapointment of our customers. when they died 6 - 12months down the line.
When I collected my zebs of Dave, we discussed this and he had a theory regarding the variation in water from the three main collection points from the wild. Dave thought that two of the sites had seasonal variation in water quality and the other had very constant and stable water quality. He said it was fish from this area that caused the problems as they were unable to cope with the changes in the aquarium.

[dave]

Just a couple of points here, when discussed with Alistair it is just a theory, that certain Gold Nuggets are difficult to keep, L81 as specified in Datz for example.

I guess there are at least 3 Gold Nuggets listed in Datz, the other 2 are relatively easy to keep, and I am assuming that they have different collection points.

I also am making an assumption I am making is that if water parameters are dictating that a species is either easy or difficult to keep, the more difficult a fish is to keep, the likelihood is that it comes from a very stable environment, salt water fish, Discus, Tropheus.

My understanding is that L46 comes from the main body of the river so I would not think that this is likely to be the cause, and changes in water parameters, as long as kept within sensible limits will have little effect.

Dave

[Alistair]

Dave,

Thanks for clearing up the points regarding gold nuggets.

Al.C

[McEve]

It's now filed under M.I.A.

This happened to my Snowball plec that keeps the qaurantine tank going! It's simply vanished, a 10 cm plec - gone Internal filter, fully covered tank top.... No trace of him at all.

Go figure, he was there a week ago

[Alistair]

you would be amazed how quickly a carcass can be stripped by other fish and snails

[eklikewhoa]

i had a l235 just vanish

[Jojoyojimbi]

alien fish abduction, i'm tellin ya

[McEve]

personally I think it's the same person that steals the left sock at every laundry.

It's a conspiracy I tell you

[Jojoyojimbi]

personally I think it's the same person that steals the left sock at every laundry.

It's a conspiracy I tell you

step 1. steal the socks
step 2. steal the fish
step 3. put fish in sock
step 4. ??????
step 5. PROFIT!