Yellow Lab Sick Or Pregnant?

[lee420]

one of my yellow labs is acting funny. it used to be the biggest and dominant fish in the tank, now its staying in the corner, lost a lot of weight, and wont eat. ive read that they do this when theyre holding fry.in their mouth but she/he is only a few months old. is there any way to confirm whats going on? should i put him/her in a breeding net? any advice is appreciated. thanks guys

 

[MBOU]

Net the fish and have something like a cocktail stick handy and carefully lift her up (with a good grip to stop her wriggling) and use the tip of the cocktail stick to open her mouth, you will see if there is eggs or babies in there or not.
 
Personally, if she is that young and has a mouthfull of babies and is losing weight, i carefully dip the females face first into a breeding tank to make the eggs and fry fall out into the trap, so long as there is nothing else in the trap, the babies will be fine without mum. Mum will then be able to start eating and put on weight again.
 
I saw too many young females kill themselves for th sake of raising fry for as long as possible. It was mental, they would lose so much weight that by the time they let the babies go, they had to energy or appetite and just faded away.