something's wrong with my yellow lab:(

Sarah84 · 01-30-2007, 09:37 PM

Hi everyone

I have 3 yellow labs.. and today i cleaned the tank etc. and looking at them tonight, my larger one ( I am unaware of any of the genders at this point) is all swollen underneth her mouth.. she wont eat.. but kinda looks like shes chewing something..and seems overly agressive towards the other tankmates.... I've only had them three weeks.. so i doubt she is holding... or is that possible?
Sarah

Tommy Gun · 01-30-2007, 10:52 PM

^Does her jaw area look like this one? If so, that picture is of one of my females who is holding right now. Typically the 'chewing' look is just a holding fish who is tumbling the eggs in her mouth. Many people sometimes strip the eggs or if a female spits too early, use an egg tumbler or a DIY equivalent to mimic that action. It is possible that she was holding since you bought her also but it was less noticable at the time. A holding female will also not eat for the entire time either so it really does sound like you may have some fry on the way. Apparently you have quite the knack for this cichlid thing!!!

I usually keep the fry and trade them in for store credit so if you can find an LFS which would do that for you, you may be able to save yourself some money. I generally keep them in a small tank until they are about one inch long and then take them to the store. In my area at least, all the fry are sold at that size most commonly.

dlee9707 · 01-30-2007, 11:08 PM

Congrats... your going to be a mom, even though i'm pretty sure you already are, and the fry wont really be your babies. But your fish is holding.

The agressiveness is weird, usually they'd stay more reclusive when holding.

I'd recommend you get a fry tank ready. Get the tank and heater and such, then put the filter in your main tank untill your ready for the fry. There are two ways to get the fry. First you can move the mother into a new tank carefully where she can spit the fry naturally, or you can strip her (involves holding the mouth open with a narrow utensile so the babies can come out.) Ofcourse you can also let them be released into the main tank. Other fish will eat them, but with hope some will survive.

Anyway good luck with it.

Sarah84 · 01-31-2007, 12:08 AM

hey!

Yes she's holding.. she looks exactly like that picture. She's only about 2.5- 3 inches. lol, that's funny, i've only had the cichlids for 3 weeks.. lol... yikes.. thanks guys!! hehe.. how exciting! Dlee yes, i'm a mom already.. I haven't had any fry experiences yet.. guess we'll wait and see.
Do you think a tank divider would do for now? I have a 5 gal .. BUT i need to find a new light fixture for the hood and thats becoming a problem in itself.

Sarah

Tommy Gun · 01-31-2007, 12:20 AM

The female in that picture is only about 3 inches long as well. Right now she is in a 10 gallon tank so I can have her spit in there without having to force her to do it. With her is a very small johanni and she defends a little inca type decoration to all ends from that one little guy. I think that if she was in my main tank with more dominant fish, then she would probrably be more shy and reclusive so that may be what is happening in your tank as well if she is the largest fish.

If you dont have another tank for her, you still have some options for keeping the fry. If you count about 23 days from when you first noticed her holding, you could move her into a breeder's net on that day and hope she spits into it. Otherwise, you could make an area of some fake plants bunched together tightly so the fry have something to hide out in and be a bit more safe from the other fish in the tank. I had one female spit into my main display tank with big males and all that, and even though I dont know how many fry were in the tank initially, I still had a good turn out of about 10 fry which grew out because they would hide in an air hose I have which looks like a plant. Like I said, I networked a few of the LFS near me, and found that ususally the smaller mom and pop type stores are more than willing to trade fry for store credit. Alot of the big chain stores have policies against that though for whatever reason.

Congrats though!