Female Odessa Barbs Are Their Demise...why Do They Keep Dying By Explo

[Ilyas]

Hello to all of you;

I am new to this site but not fish forums. I got tired of the difficulty to navigate the other site I was on and the fact that its members lack manners. So far I find this site very easy to get around as I post my fist topic...

My wife and I have 5 tanks (10g, 30g, 45g Bow Front, 45g Long and a 75g) and we plan to get more in the near future. Our 30g is a Barb tank (5 Tigers, 4 Checkered, 4, 3 Odessas) it also has 2 yoyo loaches, 4 mystery snails, and 2 dwarf rams (temp home for these two).

We do two weekly water changes of 10% in each tank and vacuum the substrate only once a week. We test our water twice a week at least. The stay around 7.4 Ph 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and nitrate, 0 phosphate. We use Prime and Stability in all water and use API Aquarium Salts at half the suggested dosage ( we reduced it from full dosage last week as we soon want to start planting all our tanks). We have never had diseases or parasites in any of our tanks. All of our fish are very happy and full of color.

However, on two occasions now, we have lost our female Odessa Barb. They show no signs of illness. We start to think they are holding eggs as they start to plump-up, play around with the male Odessa and the other Barbs, eat well and no other signs to worry about. Yet we find them about a week later in our tank, dead, and looking like they exploded in the belly area. The other fish are not picking at the dead body either.

We feed Extreme (flakes, community pellets). We also give them shelled peas 1-2 times per week, and blood worms up to 4 times a week.

I am a little worried now that we have other females there looking like they are getting plump too....

Any ideas

 

[Mr Tomato]

Hello to all of you;

I am new to this site but not fish forums. I got tired of the difficulty to navigate the other site I was on and the fact that its members lack manners. So far I find this site very easy to get around as I post my fist topic...

My wife and I have 5 tanks (10g, 30g, 45g Bow Front, 45g Long and a 75g) and we plan to get more in the near future. Our 30g is a Barb tank (5 Tigers, 4 Checkered, 4, 3 Odessas) it also has 2 yoyo loaches, 4 mystery snails, and 2 dwarf rams (temp home for these two).

We do two weekly water changes of 10% in each tank and vacuum the substrate only once a week. We test our water twice a week at least. The stay around 7.4 Ph 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and nitrate, 0 phosphate. We use Prime and Stability in all water and use API Aquarium Salts at half the suggested dosage ( we reduced it from full dosage last week as we soon want to start planting all our tanks). We have never had diseases or parasites in any of our tanks. All of our fish are very happy and full of color.

However, on two occasions now, we have lost our female Odessa Barb. They show no signs of illness. We start to think they are holding eggs as they start to plump-up, play around with the male Odessa and the other Barbs, eat well and no other signs to worry about. Yet we find them about a week later in our tank, dead, and looking like they exploded in the belly area. The other fish are not picking at the dead body either.

We feed Extreme (flakes, community pellets). We also give them shelled peas 1-2 times per week, and blood worms up to 4 times a week.

I am a little worried now that we have other females there looking like they are getting plump too....

Any ideas

Hello back. I've kept every kind of Barb since 1976. Recently I bought 10; Odessa Barbs. Within a week they all went Belly up but before that showed classic swim bladder problems..within three days of tank entry. All water parameters were good. Feeding was varied.. tank was heavily planted. 1 month later I purchased another set of ten. Within a week the very same thing happened. Yet none of the other barbs accompanying them suffered any problems and are still in the tank and swimming and eating and making little fishes. I am personally blaming the breeders and their techniques. I never came into this forum to get advice on this topic merely to give my opinion on this particular problem.
However I doubt very much now whether I shall ever purchase Odessa barbs again never mind.

 

[Colin_T]

old thread from 2013, probably won't get a response