Fat neon tetra

Blinky

Blinky

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Jun 22, 2004
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Toronto, Canada
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I posted a little while back about one of my four neons, she was looking quite lumpy, and I was a bit worried about her.
She's been steadily getting larger, and now looks as though she may explode any minute! Her colours are bright, she's swimming with the other fish and eating. She doesn't seem sick, but my goodness, she's HUGE! Her sides are bulging; she looks a bit like she's swallowed an entire pea. Is there a way to tell if she's full of eggs, as opposed to constipated or otherwise ill? :)
The tank is heavily planted, pH 6.4 - 6.6, brightly lit, NH3 & NO2 are 0, NO3 5-10ppm, PO4 ~0.75ppm.
 
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The lights are out right now, so I can't take a picture, but I can try to get one tomorrow (if she'll sit still!)
She was initially lumpy, and I mean lumpy - not uniformly swollen, she looked very strange. Her belly would change shape from two bumps to one and back again, I could watch it shift. It was as though she had something inside her belly, moving around. Now she's huge all over. Her sides are sticking out, and her belly is quite large - she looks very much like one of my platys before they give birth.
It's strange, because she's been behaving normally the entire time - eating, bossing the other neons (they all take turns), swimming around. She's bright, and in the past I've always seen neons lose colour if they're stressed, so I assume she's not too uncomfortable. Her scales are flat - it's not dropsy from what I can see. Every other fish in the tank seems very healthy. If she's getting ready to spawn, that would be wonderful, but if she's not full of eggs something's definitely wrong.
 
Well, your last post about this wasn't that long ago, but you mentioned... in the past... how long? Just trying to judge time for eggs. But the movement you mentioned makes me think of the alien movie. ;)
 
LOL, me too!
She's only been lumpy for a week or so - the initial post (01/16) was just about the time I noticed it.
I just did a search for 'neon tetra spawn' on Google, and found this page of 'customer comments' - it seems I'm not the only person who has had a neon with two lumps. Too bad it doesn't explain whether it's eggs or illness, and there's no follow up :(
 
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...and I tried pregnant neon, lumpy neon (that one brought up your post in MSN), neon and fry, fat neon, lalalalala. No joy yet. The article you referenced mentions a potential digestive system problem (two lumps??). Again, the moving part, does not sound like egg development, but then, I have never seen that. Could it have been food moving through the system? It seems that if it was a digestive problem, the fish would be sluggish. This is not the case though.
 
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Hmm, I guess there's not much info out there on lumpy neons!
Thanks for doing research on my teeny fish's behalf, I guess it's just a matter of waiting, and seeing. I sure hope she's 'in the mood', and it's not something dangerous *fingers crossed*.
 
My neons get lumpy, and then it goes away after a time. I didn't know what it was at first, but I am pretty sure it was pregnancy. I think the fish were eating the fry soon after they hatched, but I saw a couple of very tiny fry once. I understand that a sudden change in water temp will trigger spawing in neons, similar to the water temp change that might occur after a flash downpour in a shallow Amazon Basin river.

Well, I hope for you it is pregnancy :)
 
Blinky said:
Update - she's still hanging out with the other neons, still huge...
Thanks for the tip Matak, maybe I'll do a small water change with cooler water and see what happens :)
Click to expand...
Not too much cooler. Maybe 1C cooler. Don't want to stress the little guys out. :soda:
 
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