Do eggs decompose?

[fishfever]

I was curious what happens to fish eggs when there is no spawning. Do they eventually decompose inside the female or is she able to hold them for a very long time until a spawning takes place? We have had a B.A. tetra female that has been very plump for at least a month or 2. She is a heavy eater (in fact the only tetra I've ever witnessed that also bottom feeds consistently) but I have to assume she is full of eggs. I was wondering if she will lose some of her bulk if the eggs decompose (assuming she doesn't spawn with our male in the community tank).

[Carl]

I do not have answer, so I will make a guess (maybe others know more)
My guess is that a "ripe" female will lay her eggs regardless of a viable male presence and that they will not remain inside the fish.

Once the eggs have be expelled from her body they will decompose normally.

If she has been plump for this long I would suspect fluid retention, so maybe some salt baths may help (two months seems to me too long to carry eggs for a BA Tetra).

How do her feces look?
Watch for white, long and stringy feces; this can be symptoms of other problems such as internal Aeromonas or parasitic worms (but her other habits such as healthy eating do not indicate this IMO)

Carl

[danny]

i agree with carl,this may be true with bettas.i have countless times observed my female bettas releasing eggs.even without a male in sight.

[fishfever]

I checked my pet store receipt and it looks like I've had her for about 3-4 weeks. I got her when I exchanged her for another female BA tetra that was nipping tails and chasing back and forth with the male BA tetra (this one does not and gets along great with everyone). I do not believe this is fluid retention since in a previous case of fluid retention the tetra was uniformly blown up while this is concentrated in the front/bottom area. Her shape is a lot like other female BA tetras I've seen with the exception that she is noticeably wider than previous ones.

I'm thinking this is perhaps a combination of eggs and just being fat from eating so much. LOL Tonight I was dropping in shrimp pellets for the cories about 15 minutes before the lights were scheduled to go out and watched her grab the first pellet dropped and after consuming it, stole one from a lamp eye and consume it as well. These pellets are bigger than their eyes (which I heard are about the stomach size) so she must have two stomachs!

Here is our male BA tetra for reference:
i558.photobucket.com/albums/ss25/fishfever/MaleBAtetrasideview.jpg

And here she is (side view):
i558.photobucket.com/albums/ss25/fishfever/FemaleBAtetrasideview.jpg

You can see her bulkiness better from the front view (and top/bottom view is even easier to see but couldn't get one of those):
i558.photobucket.com/albums/ss25/fishfever/FemaleBAtetrafrontview2.jpg

BTW, it is rare to witness tetra feces (I've seen it maybe one time in over a year of keeping them) but definitely nothing unusual there. I will watch and see if she loses some of her bulk which will tell me she has released the eggs either by spawning or otherwise.

[Carl]

Being rare to see her feces is a good thing, as usually when there is a problem the feces do not readily fall off and are "dragged around" by the fish (although with some fish such as goldfish, this is not necessarily abnormal, you would also need to examine the color consistency)

I would simply keep an eye on her, as she is definitely "portly", but this could also be due to her healthy appetite.

Carl

[goldenpuon]

She reminds me of my female black phantoms. Fat because they eat well and seemingly full of eggs yet never spawning.

I second Carl's opinion above about keeping an eye on her.

[Suzie Q (Lori)]

I have witnessed female betta releasing eggs also...but have been told that they will reabsorb them also. Fish can get egg-bound...I have not spawned egg layer fish before (my cory's spawned but the eggs were eaten ). Have you tried starving her for a couple of days? (did not see any mention of this in scanning the post)...when my fish start looking eggy...I starve them for about 3 days to see if it is from over feeding or actually eggy. I got my 75g with very FAT kuhli loaches...I did not feed them for 5 days and then started them off with just a "pinch" of food 2x a day....they are no longer fat..but slim beautiful loaches .

Good luck with her though!!!
Lori

[fishfever]

SuzieQ, this is an interesting idea and have considered putting some of my platies/mollies on a diet. Don't want to starve the whole tank though so would probably move them to an isolation tank for a few days. What I may do is move the female and male to the iso tank to see if I can get them to spawn to release the eggs (if they do, will probably let them eat most of the eggs). If they don't spawn after say 2 days, bring the male back to the regular tank and let the female diet for a few more days to see if she can drop some of her bulk. Currently have a baby cory and platy that I rescued from Petco's adoption tank in the iso tank so will have to wait for a week before I can try this.

[fishfever]

An update; the 2 BA tetras spawned in the tank without me doing anything (although I did drop the heater setting down a degree about a day earlier which might have triggered this). This morning when I was feeding the fish I noticed the pair was totally ignoring the food (which never happens) and spawning activity was clearly going on. I watched for a while but had to leave. When I returned many hours later the female had lost at least 1/4 or more of her bulk, especially in the width department (but also not as rounded on her bottom). I knew they were real hungry after expending all that energy so I did a second tank feeding with frozen brine shrimp which the pair gobbled up as fast as they could. I did not see any eggs but they could have been eaten by now. In any case the tank is due for a major cleaning this weekend so it's unlikely any will be left. Hopefully the next time I'll be able to watch the full show!

[Carl]

Good to know she is a healthy female!

Congrats at least on the egg laying too, IMHO this also indicates a healthy vibrant aquarium.

Carl

[Suzie Q (Lori)]

Congrats on the spawning ...glad all went well!

LOL...I just re-read my post...Betta ARE egg layers...I said I had never spawned egg layers! I should have said egg spreaders

[fishfever]

Thanks Carl and Suzie, I was glad to see that they were really eggs and not just fat. I was actually in the process of prepping an isolation tank for them to spawn and get the eggs out but now I don't have to!