swollen little fish
I suspect that this fish has been eating a lot of the small fry babies the guppies have been having and it may very well be constipated or just overeating. The scales are not sticking out and there are no indications that it is any distress other than it's huge belly area. I am going to wait and see if any babies or eggs result or until it shows signs of distress. It has maintained beautiful color and fin health. I am just concerned because I have had this little fish for four years or more and all of a sudden it has begun to swell up. No other fish are exhibiting any signs of illness or stress. The fish acts normal and eats the fish food I feed them, something it had kind of done with less enthusiasm before. It tended to hang around the plants where guppies laid eggs and small fry hid, before now. It rarely came to the surface to eat food, but preferred eating morsels that sunk below the surface. Recently, it has begun to come to the top with all the other fish and seems less inclined to haunt the areas where baby fish hid, swimming in the open areas much more. I am going to wait this out for awhile. My big problem is that we are moving to a new house and I have about a hundred little fish in this aquarium that I do not know how to safely relocate without purchasing another aquarium for the new house to put the fish in while I disassemble the old one. That will require time for the new tank to mature and balance, so I will probably end up losing a number of fish anyway. I just hate to do anything that will interfere if this little fish is carrying eggs.
