Somethings Wrong With My Albino Bristlenose

[jlOisAhoTti]

He's way to fat to be healthy. Could he be a female?
I have included a few pictures...

 

[clinton ><>]

it looks pregnant to me or its obease lol

 

[jim566]

i would definatly say it's a female as she has no bristles on her head (if you've seen a male you know what i mean) and also females tend to have smaller side fins. Do you have any other BN's in the tank at all?

edit: just read your sig only 1 plec. do you know roughly how old she is? and what size she is?

 

[jlOisAhoTti]

I had another but it died like a month ago. This one's pretty small, still developing, he/she is only like 2 and a half inches.

 

[jim566]

hmmm strange as from my own experiances pregnancy is normally quite short and i would say really at 2.5" still a little on the young side as mine took 5 years to start producing eggs.

the other worry would be that the male is the main parent regards caring for the eggs and looking after fry. Don't mean to worry you and i'm only going on personal experiance.

 

[jlOisAhoTti]

Can't you artificially care for them?

 

[jim566]

not sure on that one as the male fans the eggs to keep a constant flow of water over them and 9 times out of 10 they hide the eggs in a cave or small hole

 

[jlOisAhoTti]

I can use a filter or something to flow the water and methylene blue to fight bacteria.

 

[ArauraDiscus]

Yeah but you have no other bristles, so it's not like they will be fertile.

 

[dylema]

In my experience 2.5" (1 year old or so) is big enough to start producing eggs. The female will produce eggs and then if a male is present after the courting part he will fertilise the eggs as she lays them in the cave. . You can raise the young from eggs using an airstone with the eggs in a net or fry saver. But yes you do need a male in there to fertalise the eggs.

I would also feed her some peas in case she is a little blocked up and getting bloated from that.

I am just wondering if you took the fish out just to take the pictures. I think it is best to try and get shots in the tank (I know thats a lot easier said than done) so you don't stress the fish by taking it out of the water unnecissarily.


Dylan

 

[jlOisAhoTti]

I know, I tried in the water but they looked like crap. I took her out for only a few brief seconds to take the pics. Thank you everybody for your help!

 

[LakeyGal]

I have a female Albino and 3 weeks ago she looked virtually the same and started lying upside down cos her stomach was too bloated. I put a cave in (fortunately I also have a male BN who set it up for her) she went in and over a couple days she laid eggs and shrunk back down to normal size.

I reckon your's is really egg bound try giving her a nice dark crevice - tho I'm not sure how it works if you don't have a male to invite her in?

 

[jlOisAhoTti]

I guess I'll have to go out and see if I can buy a male though. I'm going to feed her peas first though, just to make sure she's not just bloated.

 

[Bloo]

definitely female and her stomach also looks very brown (lots in there). So my guess is peas should take care of the problem