white cloud minnow help

[Phish]

I have had my minnows for about 6 weeks or so now, and they have been doing great. I put them in the tank when it was all cycled, and I do weekly water changes..

anyways, 2 of my minnows have a big white stomach and are swimming at the top of my tank behing my eheim spray bar.. my untrained eye said they were pregnant but in reading about whiteclouds I guess it doesn't work that way (they have eggs?)

one thing i read was they carry their eggs and show when they are ready to breed, and then you are supposed to take a male and female and put it in its
own tank.

anyways, just curious if anyone has experienced this, i dont have any tanks to breed em so, will they be okay if i just let time pass?

[ER9]

wonder if its internal parasites?

[Phish]

scary, I hope not, should I quarantine these 2 in case...

[Phish]

okay I quarantined these 2, not really sure what to do from here. they aren't like suuuuper bloated or anything, but there is def. a bulge by the belly. has anyone experienced anything like this with whiteclouds?

[Complexity]

I just got 12 long finned white clouds and some of them have bloated bellies. I'm not sure if anything's wrong because they're behaving just fine. Mine are in a QT tank before I add them to any of my regular tanks, but I have been wondering about their bloated appearance.

[Complexity]

Looking at pics, it appears the bloating is indeed females loaded with eggs. Take a look at this page. The pictures of gravid females on this page is identical to how my white clouds look like.

http://aqualandpetsplus.com/Minnows,...e%20Clouds.htm

[Complexity]

Okay, here's an excellent picture of a gravid female. Definitely matches what mine look like. Are you're looking the same?

http://www.fishforums.net/index.php?...post&p=2219339

[Phish]

yep that is exactly what they look like! they sure do look "ripe." I take it they are fine to be in the tank then?

thanks complexity!!

[Complexity]

You cannot determine if they are 'fine' just by looking at them. While their bloated appearance seems to be normal, any and all fish should be quarantined for 2 weeks before being added to your main tank. This allows enough time for any unseen problem to manifest itself. If they do fine after 2 weeks (some people prefer 4 weeks), then they should be fine to move to your main tank.

Keep in mind that whenever you buy a new fish, that fish has recently gone through a major ordeal just to be shipped to your LFS. Then you get the fish which includes more netting, more transportation, and more water composition changes. All of this really stresses out even the healthiest of fish.

This level of stress lowers the fish's immune system, making it much more susceptible to any disease or parasite that happens along. So when you put your new, highly stressed fish, into your main tank, you're playing Russian Roulette. It's only a matter of time before you add a fish with a disease that infects all of your fish in your main tank.

When you use a QT tank for 2 weeks, you are first giving the fish a chance to recuperate from all the stresses of being shipped to the LFS and then moved to your house. There are no other fish in the tank to fight over for food or territory. You can (and should) do extra water changes to ensure excellent water quality. The fish are able to be better acclimated to your water conditions without other stresses affecting them. And if the fish does get sick, not only will you see visible signs within the 2 weeks, but the fish are in a tank that's easy to medicate without harming any of your main fish, inverts or plants.

Are your fish okay? Probably. But that's really not the question to ask yourself. The question to ask yourself if what are you willing to risk. If you won't mind throwing away all of the the fish, inverts and plants in your main tank, tearing it down, sterilizing it, re-cycle it, and then start all over again, then by all means, put the fish directly into your main tank. But if you would mind that potential disaster, then put all fish in a QT tank for at least 2 weeks before adding them into your main tank.

Also, minimize your risk by never buying from "box stores" (PetCo, PetSmart, WalMart) that do not make their entire living off of fish and ONLY fish. Get to know the owner of the store and find out what precautions s/he uses to ensure healthy fish. And never buy a fish on the day it first arrives at the LFS. It's best to wait at least a week. Most better LFSs will QT their new fish before even letting them be sold because they care about their fish and wish to maintain a very high reputation for healthy livestock. Otherwise, do the general tips of checking out the tanks in the store, avoiding any store with lots of dead/sick fish (this is especially true when all the tanks share a main filtration system so that diseases travel from any tank to ALL tanks).

And you thought you were asking a simple "yes/no" question!

[ER9]

i have severely overfed my whiteclouds on occasion and never seen any bloating to that degree. their bellies get distended downward but never really as much as in those pictures. iv'e also never seen them that bloated from parasites yet....so yours might be pregnant

[Hilde]

So did any of you have white cloud minnow fry?

[merk1_99]

The bloated look imo is a female ready to breed. Do you have any sexual mature males? My 3 females were ready much before my lone male was. They were ready to breed 3-4 months before the male was ready. Once you get them started they will breed like it is going out of style. I have had my best success in keeping the temps at 68F, and feeding a variety of live foods like blackworms, melano fruit flies, spring tails, and brine shrimp. I have about 120 juvies about 45 days old right now. I am in the process of cycling a 29 gallon to put 30-40 in and hopefully I can sell the rest....I love WCM. I need to try and work with a long fin variety.