Help! female is like a ballon!

[breezer40]

I have a pair of dwarf gouramis which have never yet produced any little ones. The male does build nests but I don't think he has gone beyond practiceing yet. The female has turned into a huge silver ballon which is either a very heavy pregnancy or a sign of something seriously wrong

Can those in the know please let me know if this is a normal sign of having eggs or not. She can hardly swim because she is so big

 

[sylvia]

Could you post your water parameters including pH and temp. and also what size tank this is and what other occupants there are?

They do get quite large when full of eggs but not quite like you described... do you have a photo?

Are her scales sticking out? What does her poo look like? Does she eat ok?

Feed her a shelled pea incase she has constipation. Also stop feeding for a couple of days.

Increasing the temp. in the tank slightly would also work - but only if there is no sign of lethargy or sticking-out scales which would be a sign of dropsy (usualy internal bacteria) in which case raising the temp would do more harm than good.

If you don't have any scaless fish (cories, plecos, other catfsh) or any snails/salt intolerant invertabrates, you may want to add a little bit of salt just in case.

 

[breezer40]

Water parameters are:

Ammonia=0
Nitrite=0
Nitrate=20ppm
Ph 6.5
Temp=80
TDS= 160ppm


No signs of dropsy.

Her poo is normal and she ate bloodworm this morning.

She was in the community tank but I quaranteened her earlier and water parameters are same in new tank apart from nitrates which are 22.

All tanks are well matured (over 3 years for both).

This one has me stumped

nearly forgot..First tank size 240ltrs...quaranteen tank 70ltrs

 

[sylvia]

Hmm... maybe she is just carrying eggs. Fast her for a day though anyway - just in case. It won't affect her negatively so you have nothing to lose.

 

[breezer40]

Poor little thing died today I squeezed her tummy a bit when I found her dead to see if the cause was eggs but although there was a few most of what ran from her was white fluid (maybe water).

Thankyou sylvia for answering this post

 

[sylvia]

Oh I'm sorry Looks like it was an internal bacterial infection after all...