How do i know if my fish is pregnant or not? - Fish for the Planted Aquarium

Ziki · 10-05-2009, 07:50 PM

I have a fish and the stomach is just bigger than all the fish in tank. I don't know whether it's pregnant or not. And if it's pregnant, what should i do?

Ozone · 10-05-2009, 08:26 PM

really fish get pregnant??? i thought they lay eggs

TAB · 10-05-2009, 08:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ozone

really fish get pregnant??? i thought they lay eggs

not all fish lay eggs, many give live birth.

what kind of fish are these?

Fish like guppys, mollys, sword tails, plattys... all give live birth.

If you don't want to raise the baby fish, you can do nothing. If you would like to raise them, you need to isolate the mother. something like one of these work great

http://www.thatpetplace.com/pet/prod/204233/product.web

http://www.thatpetplace.com/pet/group/14468/product.web ( several diffrent kinds out there)

I pesonally like the nets as I feel they allow better water movment. They will not stop the mother from eating the young.

If its not a livebearer... well swim blader probs generally lead to death

luckydud13 · 10-06-2009, 04:44 PM

More info is really needed, but usually swollen bellies are a given sign

Ziki · 10-06-2009, 04:49 PM

someone at fish store told me that i need another tank and put marbles at bottom of the tank so the mother won't eat the baby, and the Zebra Danio will lay a few times to empty all her eggs...i just try to keep the budget low cuz i can't afford another tank

Six · 10-07-2009, 05:35 AM

It's not really worth the time and effort to spawn and raise zebra danio fry. The guy at the LFS is absolutely right- that's how you breed them. But, you don't have to. Egg scatterers like most cyprinids will breed regularly in your aquarium, but they do not "need" to be bred.

HTH!

GL!

demen45 · 10-09-2009, 06:01 PM

big belly is a good sign that the fish is pregnant

Tex Gal · 10-09-2009, 09:17 PM

If you want to try you can get some screen (fiberglass window screen) and sew it into a box or dip in into the water to make a pool. Put all the fish in the pool. This basically separates them from the other part of the tank. You can stick some floating plants up there too if you want. They will spawn and all the eggs will fall through the screen. The problem you will have is that in about 7 days they will hatch and come to the top of the water. Unless you have a way to keep the adults separated from them they will eat them.

If you did this in a separate tank you could only put the gravid (pregnant) fish and 2 males in the pool. At dusk they will breed, either the first night or 2nd night. On the 3rd day using the screen just remove the adults back to the big tank. In 7 days they will hatch. Make sure you have a sponge over the filter intake. They will eat baby fry food and microbes around the plants. You can leave them in the filtered tank until they are big enough to put in with the adults. A 10g works great for this.

Ziki · 10-10-2009, 08:50 PM

thanks everyone, now i have problem w/ my water cuz the pH is little high so i have to stop my fish from dying 1st. hix... so probably won't able to breed...

Six · 10-11-2009, 08:23 AM

how high? pH won't kill fish if it's too high or too low unless it is fluctuating or just plain rediculously high (8+) or low (<5) .
"fixing" pH usually means dumping in a chemical- don't do that! If you're really worried about pH, do small water changes with RO water to bring it down. I'm talking like 10% of the tank's volume. There are other ways to naturally bring down pH.

Honestly, zebra danios are very hardy in high or low pH. I think it's more likely something else that is killing them.