constipated cichlids

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Cichlidlovers

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Feb 3, 2005
Messages
71
Location
Vancouver Island Canada
I recently moved my africans into my new 90 gal, It looks like my red zebra has a little bulge where she goes poop..lol. I watched her for an hour and she didn't poop at all. She is very active and is digging like crazy in the new sand. I noticed that my jewel has this as well. The only thing I have changed in their diets (more for the Africans actually) is spirilina flakes. Could they be constipated? Or maybe stressed by the move? I feed them twice a day sinking pellets in the morning and flakes at night, Peas every 2-3 days, Bloodworms or Brine shrimp as treats once a week, and feeder fish once every 2 months or so. They are not bloated anywhere else. Any ideas??
 
Are they females and over 2.5" long??
Sometimes when a female is ready to breed, their females part becomes swollen to get ready for releasing eggs. I just went through this last week with my red zebra. she was swollen and started dropping eggs when chased.
 
I actually thought that as yes they are females, but no eggs as of yet that I can see. I think the Zebra has released hers then because she looks fine now. As for the jewel would she lay eggs even if there is no male? She is looking quite pale today.
 
You can usually see a white bulge when the oviduct is full of eggs on a female African. My guess is that, yes, she's getting ready to lay eggs. Be careful feeding too much high protein (i.e. brine shrimp, blood worms, feeders) to Africans cichlids like Metriaclima, Estherae, or Pseudotropheus as they are herbivores and, with a diet to high in animal protein, can get Malwai bloat and die. I would suggest cutting back on live food to once every two weeks just to be safe. Although your Haps and Labs will miss it, it's better for your herbivores :)
 
As travis said, watch out for the bloat. This is one of the biggest problems with mixing all different types of cichlids together, no one really gets the diet they need.
Just read up on bloat because it's the most common killer of cichlids I've seen.
This is an article from cichlid forum on it but I've seen the article on various other websites as well, plus it has pictures.

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/malawi_bloat.php

I'm not really sure you have bloat though, but cutting back feeding high doses of protein can't hurt.
 
I agree with you Poppa it is not bloat as i have done lots of research on the subject. The jewel is in a different tank, and she is looking really green now, all the red she had on her is gone. Everyone else is perfectly fine now. I think i will post in the unhealthy fish section and see if anyone knows more about jewels.
Though I am sad to say she is my least favorite fish, I still want to do right by her.
 
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