PlanetCatfish.com

Hi guys.
I just returned home and i am really pissed as i found one of my L65 dead.
As it seemed to be bloated i 'opened' it to see why...and this is what i've discovered...

Note that that fish was only 12cm TL in size!!!!
I don't know why that happened as there is nothing wrong with the fish (judging from general appearance) and nothing wrong with the rest of them.....





...tomorrow it was planned to be moved in their permanent tank...(now they are in grow out)

Here is the post from back in September when i bought them.....

http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 80&start=0

Teribly sorry for your loss.

One thing I noticed was the darkening from the left pectoral down toward the mid-line of the stomach.... fighting or heater burn maybe???

husky_jim wrote:

Im sorry to hear about your loss, my friend. You will get better ones next time.
Apparently, i hope you have got her "measurement" drawn because i feel that by knowing the proportion of its feature will help to determine the sex of the fish.

The length of her pectoral would suggest that its a female. But of cos, the size of the pelvic fin as well. However, this "theory" of mine does not seems to be applicable to L24 or L25.

hotchiliz wrote:

husky_jim wrote:

Im sorry to hear about your loss, my friend. You will get better ones next time.
Apparently, i hope you have got her "measurement" drawn because i feel that by knowing the proportion of its feature will help to determine the sex of the fish.

The length of her pectoral would suggest that its a female. But of cos, the size of the pelvic fin as well. However, this "theory" of mine does not seems to be applicable to L24 or L25.

I have kept the fish and i am discussing with an ichthyopathologist in order to perform an autopsy....I will messure the fish and post some updated pics...i hope that i have another female in the group.

From what we have discussed in hannover and by examing all my pseudas i think that your theory of determining the sex based on fins has a great % of accuracy!

husky_jim wrote:
I have kept the fish and i am discussing with an ichthyopathologist in order to perform an autopsy....I will messure the fish and post some updated pics...i hope that i have another female in the group.

From what we have discussed in hannover and by examing all my pseudas i think that your theory of determining the sex based on fins has a great % of accuracy!

Don't worry, from the pics that you have posted when you just got those fish. I could see 2 females from Group A and 1 from Group B. So the chances of having females in your colony is still high.

alga wrote:Teribly sorry for your loss.

One thing I noticed was the darkening from the left pectoral down toward the mid-line of the stomach.... fighting or heater burn maybe???

...i believe fighting as well...we will see

Sorry for your loss. Great documentation

I took out all of my 6 L65s this evening and concluded that I have 3 males and 3 females. The females measured 12cm tl and the males measured 14cm tl. At least one of the females was gravid. Sexing this species is dead easy because of the extremely different head/body shape and size of both dorsal and pectoral fins.

Haavard Stoere wrote:Sorry for your loss. Great documentation

I took out all of my 6 L65s this evening and concluded that I have 3 males and 3 females. The females measured 12cm tl and the males measured 14cm tl. At least one of the females was gravid. Sexing this species is dead easy because of the extremely different head/body shape and size of both dorsal and pectoral fins.

i second your conclusion!good luck with yours too....i think this spieces is the 'easiest' among pseudacanthicus to try to breed....

husky_jim wrote:
I have kept the fish and i am discussing with an ichthyopathologist in order to perform an autopsy....I will messure the fish and post some updated pics...i hope that i have another female in the group.

From what we have discussed in hannover and by examing all my pseudas i think that your theory of determining the sex based on fins has a great % of accuracy!

I hope you dun mind if i added some pics of mine when i did a autopsy on my spinosus. It also suffered from sudden death.. and the most heart-breaking is to see those sacs of eggs.

* Not for the weak heart, sorry if these images upset your appetite*





check the irregularities of the size of the eggs...it reminds me of a chicken, that they will release the eggs when it is ready of the right size.

Wow!that is very sad to see....When did you lost her?

Unfortunately i have more bad news from the tank....i just found 15 minutes ago another female again full of eggs dead....

The tank is officially 'problematic' and despite the fact that there is no obvious reasons for the deaths i started treating with Esha 2000.

I hope that the deaths will stop here and that i have at least one female left in there.....I will update you with the situation

Are you sure you have any definite males? To me all of them look like females. If there are males they didn`t look very masculin when you photographed them. This might have changed since you bought them.

Why not make a new photosession and photograph them one by one from above and in your hand from the side to compare dorsal fin size.

Haavard Stoere wrote:Are you sure you have any definite males? To me all of them look like females. If there are males they didn`t look very masculin when you photographed them. This might have changed since you bought them.

Why not make a new photosession and photograph them one by one from above and in your hand from the side to compare dorsal fin size.

I will take new pics when i will be sure that nothing is wrong with the fish and/or tank.Probably next Saturday....