Warning To Frontosa Keepers, Please Read

[star4]

I have had a really upsetting time, I have lost 4 of my female frontosa, its seems that all 4 were holding either eggs or young. I lost the smallest one first at 6pm and thought it was the male bothering her so I moved him, then the other 3 started going down hill, fitting and swimming erratically, these 3 use to hang around my the heater and I thought as the temperature had risen (only from 25-27) the heater was at fault so I changed the heater and did a water change. They still were looking really ill colour loss and lathargic so I moved them all to my quaranteen tank, then I lost another one in the early hours of the morning around 2am, dispite staying up all night I lost the 3rd at about 4am, the 4th one I managed to revive 3 times by holding her by the outtake of the filter giving her more oxygen, but after battling I lost her too yesterday afternoon. The 2 males are fine as are the remaining 3 of sex unknown. The cause: I killed them! I fed them some prawn a few days previously. The prawns were defrosted correctly and were also fed to my ca/sa cichlids not just the fronts. Female fronts hold food in their mouths for the young (which I knew) but all 4 must have held some prawn and the young didnt or couldnt eat it, and it went off giving them ammonia poisoning, I have spoken to a couple of people about this, including a knowledgable chap at my LFS and it seems that this is the most probable cause of death as my water stats for them were "spot on". I had tested my water myself and had the LFS test it in case I messed it up.


So if you have fronts and you suspect they maybe holding please please watch what you feed them, I would hate for anyone else to go through this awful feeling of guilt and dispare I am going through at the moment. All the research I did on frontosa nothing mentioned this could happen.

 

[Littlemonkey]

Sorry to hear about that, I completely understand how you feel, esp after my loosing Inky at the weekend. Hope the other's you have keep on going.

 

[dave_oddballs]

#92###, thats something i would never of thought about, mine are only small yet but something i will definitely keep in mind when they mature!
sorry for your loss, thats awful.

 

[star4]

Loosing any fish hits me hard, I love them all so much. Dont worry Littlemonkey I have no thoughts of giving up my fish.

Dave the smallest one was about 4" I had no idea she was holding there was no signs, It was when I took her out of the tank i saw her venting "hole" was larger showins she was no longer a virgin (sorry its the only way to explain it)

 

[Gilli]

How upsetting, - you do what you think is the very best for your fish and something like this happens! We learn by our mistakes but its a hard lesson when we love our fish.

Thats the beauty of this forum though - we can pass on our knowledge and hopefully someone else will not have to go through the same thing!