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This guy is about 3/4" in has a very swollen stomach...looks like a ballon mollie. The rest of the 11 are just fine. What does that mean? it's full of gases? parasites? leave it alone? right now I got it quarantined. Dan

Looks like this one http://www.zebrapleco.com/forum/viewtop ... light=baby

I found it to be caused by the water being too soft. Increased the GH and it was better in 4 hours if I remember correctly. The fry still died though, as it had suffered severe internal injuries

So.. soft water is good for spawning, but not too soft for the fry! 0 is too soft

It looks like it might be severly constipated. Usually the treatment of choice for that is Epsom- which also will raise hardness some. If you have a small tank, move the little guy to it and treat it there. Use 1 teaspoon Epsom/3 gals of water to start- disolve it before putting it in. Make sure tank is bare bottom so you can see if the fish is/begins pooping.

it's water retention due to a breakdown in the osmosis function.

Read the other thread, especially page 5 and 6 where the solution is to be found. Read the whole thread and you'll see we went through quite a few options, including constipation. Move the fry and treat him with epsom salt, and you'll loose him. then in two days time you'll find another fry with the same problem in the original tank.

Check the water parameters in the tank where the fry is at present.

Sorry about being so strong about this, but I'd hate to see you loose more then the one already damaged.

If it's caused by the water being too soft, Epsom Salt raises GH anyway.

Thanks guys...I did treated with salt & somehow it appeared livelier. I had this hunch that if I left it in a quarantine tank I would loose him. The only reason I found out was because I was moving the whole herd to a new 20 long aquarium, full of slates, wood, sand substrate, overfiltration, etc. I decided to set him loose to give him a chance to survive, but little chance of finding him again with so much tank decor. I'll check water paramenters in the morning. Heres' a pick of all of them, total 12, from three different sources... the little guy is the one stuck to the wall...

whoa, hope it turns out for the best! There is some very knowledgable people here with lots of experience and they know who they are!

Listen to the advice you have given and don't hesitate on anything especially asking for help!! Good luck!

Sorry to report that I found the little guy belly-up this morning. I removed him immediately for examination & before it gets picked on by others. It had a pinkish laceration on the right side, just above the pectoral fin...I believe the skin stretched too much & the skin just opened, otherwise it didn't looked like a disease. Normal coloration, except the black markings were dithering a bit, again I think the skin stretched too much. Still swollen. I was able to check on most of the others & they appear just fine.

The following were my readings this morning:
Temp: 85 F
pH: 7.24
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
GH: 17.9 ppm
KH: 35.8 ppm

If my water hardness is wrong, what can I add to it? Now I'm concerned for the rest. Only thing else in this tank is 5 guppies, which I use just as water testers. Dan

your water is not too soft. What is the readings in the tank they came from? what about Nitrate?

A GH of 17.9 is very soft. That's 1 degree - and a hobbyist test kit probably has difficulty reporting the difference between zero, one and two degrees of general hardness.

I think I might have to invest in professional testing equipt versus kits...after all $150 worth of Zebra just went down the drain. I drained the old water before testing it. One of the reasons was because it was full of snails, breeding everywhere. I wonder if the zebra ate a snail egg & it just grew & balloned inside...hummm.

Pete wrote:A GH of 17.9 is very soft. That's 1 degree -

you're right, I missed the ppm bit. We use degrees, so I read it as 17.9 degrees 1 is too soft and fits with water retention.

McEve wrote:

Pete wrote:A GH of 17.9 is very soft. That's 1 degree -

you're right, I missed the ppm bit. We use degrees, so I read it as 17.9 degrees 1 is too soft and fits with water retention.

Ok, McEve.....so how do I make the water harder. Can I reconstitute it with some products? I know that there are some products for Discus to make it brackish...will this work? thanks. Dan

Are you using RO or tap water...?

I mix RO and Tap to bring the hardness back up a bit.
But it depends on your tap water - Your LFS should be able to sell you something to buffer the water....

If I remember - Baking soda (Bicarbonate of soda) increases Hardness
Not sure on dosage though.

The best way is to not use RO water in the first place. Fry grow better in unaltered water, as people like Jack Wattley would tell you.

Baking Soda only affects Kh (buffering), not Gh.