Loaches Online Forum

one of my breeding female s. petricolas has been developing a very large abdomen over the past few weeks and the usual bi monthly mating flurry of activity has not occurred leading me to wonder if she is having difficulty releasing her eggs. her belly is, as an estimate, about one and a half times the usual size that it gets to when she's gravid. of course dropsy is another possibility although when i've seen it develop before (only in mollies) it has been quick to manifest and death comes quickly despite treatment.

anyway, does anyone have any ideas about ways to intervene in a situation where there may be eggs bound up or is it simply a death sentence?

i've checked the hardness of the water as i hadn't done that for awhile and it was a bit low so i added more AF Chemistry which hardens the water (i do this regularly with each water change anyway but somehow it had lowered slightly anyway). also i'm trying to lower the temp of the water a bit as that sometimes encourages spawning. and finally i hope to remove some of the youngsters that have started to grow up in the tank as i'm thinking they are starting to crowd the situation and perhaps that is adding to stress and creating part of the problem.

anyone have ANY input. all thoughts are welcome. well, courteous ones. : )

seems you've thought of all the major options. now you've got to implement and observe. eggs can also be resorbed internally. unless the situation becomes cystic which is maybe why she's so big.

what does it mean to be cystic?

if the eggs are not released it's due to hormonal imbalance which can be caused by all the things you mentioned especially having other petricolas in the tank. due to the pheromones they all produce, normal function can be suppressed. if the eggs are sort of ripening but don't get a chance to be finished off, then fluid can build up around the eggs in the ovaries. that's cystic. the ovaries become like fluidfilled bubbles which grow larger and larger.

thanks. so is it resolvable if they are cystic? i mean with the population reduction.