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OK here goes... my Khuli loach, looked like she was having a seizure whilst upside down when I found her in my tank today... I thought she was dying

As I observed, I noticed a huge spurt of tiny white balls come out near where the rear end is, and I knew right wawy it was eggs. She has been laying eggs now for 2 days stright at random times throughout the night an dday. She is one of two females I have and is very fat, and of course getting a little thinner as she lays them.

I turend off my filter becaus eit kept sucking in my eggs, but how long can my tank go without a filter, I read mixed reports that the eggs need to be green and hatch in a week and some reports say they hatch in 3 days.

The eggs she is squirtting out are white, some clear, anmd some clear white with a goooey thing in them, and a few have a taint of green to them. Are theses fertile ro what???

I have a 20gallon tank, with only 3 khuli loaches because funny this happened as I am in the process of moving out and giving away all my fish for adoption, all I have left are these 3 little guys. I think I will need to do 30% water changes every 3 days to keep the tank clean without a filter and I can't clean the bottom, I have 1 piece of driftwood and 1 rock, and thats all, no plants left.

Eggs are like in the hundreds I think, maybe will be close to a 1000 by the time she is done. And they are scattered all over the place.

I also read they eat the unfertilized eggs and leave teh good ones, how do I knwo they won't eat them all, I am clueless what to do here. Also, how does a fish tell the difference???

Any suggestions... please please please

Thanks a million in adavnce

Hiya,

you can also ask <a href="http://aquaweb.pair.com/forums/loach/">here</a>. There is more ppl with experience in loach keeping :).

Regards.

Well... some bad news, the female died, and I think perhaps due to some complications. She was trying to lay eggs all day and night for 3 days. I squeezed her a little after she died and a ton of green eggs came out, I barely had to squeeze actually. I hope some of these hatch.

Also, I noticed they only look bright green when bundled up together, once seperated they look clear with cloudy stuff inside, and also some with a very slight taint of green. So I am hoping they are fertilized.

I am giving them 10days to hatch, if not by then, I will turn my filter back on. Till then I will do water changes manually from the top, and feed the remianing 2 loaches I have well enough so they don't eat the eggs.

So far they dont touch them at all, its like they know and have some kind of parenting skills.

I guess with the little to none information avaulable on these species I will just have to go by instinct, try my best, and let nature do it's course.

If so much as 10 of these make it, I will be happy.

By the way, there seemd to be close to a thousand eggs.

It's a little off-subject, but I had a Pristella sp.(Tetra) die after laying eggs for a few days in a row. Does anybody know if it's egg impaction? Or have they lived their lives through? I know the Pristellas I have now are at least 3 years old and they were fully grown when I purchased them. It's so difficult for me to know how old a fish is when I get it from a LFS. Unless I can see it's truly a juvenile. I've read that some Tetra species are short-lived in the wild, but longer lived in aquaria. What about loaches? Does the same apply to Catfish? Are their lifespans the same in the wild as in captivity?