What should I do with my rosy barb?

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LibertyandSam

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We have a community tank with a range of different types of barbs and tetras, we noticed one of the rosy barbs getting particularly fat - we only have two. Thinking the female might be 'pregnant' we decided to set up a smaller separate tank to see if she would lay. She has been in there for a couple of weeks now and we are getting concerned with how fat she is. She is in there with only another male, it's a bare tank only with plants in. We are quite inexperienced with breeding and want to know the best steps forward to encourage us to save some fry.

None of the other fish has gained in size like her, we suspect we also have a pregnant tiger barb in the main tank but we don't have any additional tanks for the pair yet. We don't have any concerns of bloat as the rest of the tank is healthy and she has been in the separate tank with monitored eating.
 
Can you post a photo of the fish?
 

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That looks like dropsy. What are your water parameters and conditions? What do you feed the fish? What is the tank size and stocking?
 
We’ve just done a water change, done a test on PH, Ammonia, Nitrates and Nitrites and they are all within the suggested range.
They are fed a mix of tropical flake, dried bloodworm, colour flake, pellets and shrimp granules.
The community tank is a range of barbs and tetras, aquascaped and fed the same as I listed above. This tank is 3ft, 280 litres. The tank they are in now is a smaller, 55 litre tank. Internal filter, no other fish. All parameters are regularly checked and water changed as appropriate.
 
Do you hydrate the bloodworm?

Has there been any lapse in conditions in the past?

Can you be more specific with the answers as numbers/ values could help us spot potential issues?
 
We have a community tank with a range of different types of barbs and tetras, we noticed one of the rosy barbs getting particularly fat - we only have two. Thinking the female might be 'pregnant' we decided to set up a smaller separate tank to see if she would lay. She has been in there for a couple of weeks now and we are getting concerned with how fat she is. She is in there with only another male, it's a bare tank only with plants in. We are quite inexperienced with breeding and want to know the best steps forward to encourage us to save some fry.

None of the other fish has gained in size like her, we suspect we also have a pregnant tiger barb in the main tank but we don't have any additional tanks for the pair yet. We don't have any concerns of bloat as the rest of the tank is healthy and she has been in the separate tank with monitored eating.
I had a female that got as big as a house and I put her in with males just before "lights out" and the next morning the males were chasing her around the tank and by 9:00 am they stopped so I took them out and put them back in the Barbs tank. She was still huge and I let the tank that I thought they spawned in set for over a week and no eggs or fry was ever seen. I also had a second Female that I conditioned for a couple weeks in another tank and put some males with her and got a tank full of fry in a few days. The bloated female got so big she could hardly swim for months she hung on until one morning while feeding she was found in the Water Wysteria dead.
 
Do you hydrate the bloodworm?

Has there been any lapse in conditions in the past?

Can you be more specific with the answers as numbers/ values could help us spot potential issues?
Hi sorry for the late response, I'm new to this!

Unsure what you mean by hydrate the blood worm, is this something we should be doing? We use King British Dired Bloodworm and add it to the normal feed 2-3 times a week as the instructions say.

PH is 6.6. Ammonia and Nitrite is 0ppm. Nitrate is 5.0ppm. We last checked these on Sunday, both fish in the tank look active and healthy. She seems to be a little weighed down but she's managing to swim and be just as active as usual.

No lapse in conditions, our community tank has been running for 3-4 months now, previously we had Malawi's. We haven't had any problems with the tank or fish.
 
Freeze dried bloodworms can cause problems for fish. Because it is freeze dried it does not contain any water so it absorbs water and swells up when placed in water. When fish don't eat it immediately, the bloodworm absorbs tank water before it's eaten but when fish eat it as soon as it's put in the tank, it absorbs water and swells up inside the fish which can harm the fish.
It is advisable to put the bloodworm in a bit of tank water in a small tub for several minutes to absorb water before putting it in the tank.
 
Freeze dried bloodworms can cause problems for fish. Because it is freeze dried it does not contain any water so it absorbs water and swells up when placed in water. When fish don't eat it immediately, the bloodworm absorbs tank water before it's eaten but when fish eat it as soon as it's put in the tank, it absorbs water and swells up inside the fish which can harm the fish.
It is advisable to put the bloodworm in a bit of tank water in a small tub for several minutes to absorb water before putting it in the tank.
Okay thankyou. This is definitely something we will do from now on.
 
We have a community tank with a range of different types of barbs and tetras, we noticed one of the rosy barbs getting particularly fat - we only have two. Thinking the female might be 'pregnant' we decided to set up a smaller separate tank to see if she would lay. She has been in there for a couple of weeks now and we are getting concerned with how fat she is. She is in there with only another male, it's a bare tank only with plants in. We are quite inexperienced with breeding and want to know the best steps forward to encourage us to save some fry.

None of the other fish has gained in size like her, we suspect we also have a pregnant tiger barb in the main tank but we don't have any additional tanks for the pair yet. We don't have any concerns of bloat as the rest of the tank is healthy and she has been in the separate tank with monitored eating.
Just as a little update...we decided to let nature take its course and put her back in the main tank. Mum is still very fat, but doing fine and haven’t noticed any fry in the tank. However, in the separate tank she was in we discovered one tiny fry in the filter section on the back, so we removed it and is in its own tank. Doing very well and is around 0.5cm?
 

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