Pair look fine but not eating

[jtchia]

hi there everyone!

i have a beautiful pair of snakeskins, i brought them last month and since then they have spawned 5 times! (around every 6 days) when i first got them, they were eating tetra bits, but for the last 10 days they haven't been eating or eating much, maybe only one or two pieces of tetra bits. the strange thing is they are still laying! i didn't think they would still spawn since they haven't been eating. the only thing they seem to be eating is their own eggs :( they look perfect, i can't see any signs of illness. fins are fully erected, not signs of rotting fins or white poo or anything.

what i notice is alot of little white wriggling worms in the water and on the glass but i was told that they are only planaria and will not harm the fish and they are there because the fish aren't eating their food.

i am thinking of changing them to a new fresh tank but i dont want to seed the new tank with anything from the old tank because i dont want to transfer the planaria into the new tank. is there any other way to go about this?

thanks in advance

regards

John

[ILLUSN]

My turks go off their food when they have eggs, the malesp wont eat till after the fry hatch, just pump the food into them when they start eating again.

[jtchia]

HI ILLUSN, thanks for the reply.
what do you mean by pump food into them? with a syringe? they haven't eaten for days now, they had a batch of eggs yesterday and today they are gone, ive tried feeding some frozen beefheart and brine, they won't eat it. could it be something wrong with the water? so i move them to a fresh new tank?

[ILLUSN]

lol no mate just offer food as often as you can lol i feed mine 4x a day once the wrigglers hatch you'll have to do daily changes any way to keep the tank clean just suck up the uneaten food each night.

they genrally dont want to eat when they are guarding eggs so its kinda normal if your really worried once the eggs hatch move the female to a serate tank (they go through a little more stress than the males cause of egg production) and feed the 2 fish up seperately, the male is more than capable of raising fry on his own.

[jtchia]

Hi ILLUSN all the eggs are gone but they not taking any food. Water par is good. pH is about 6.5. Ammonia, nitrites and nitrates all reading 0. Havent tested for hardness though but should be low as melbourne water is already low and i add seachems discus buffer. Tried feeding few different frozen foods but they are not accepting it. Im going to try buy some live blackworms and brine tomorrow. Hopefully they will start eating again.

[ILLUSN]

split the pair and feed up seperately, you'll get a much better spawn when you put them back together again.

[jtchia]

i have brought some live brine today, they are not taking that either, i will split them up, do you think i should bath them in epsom salt to clean out their gut? i read after people do that they become really hungry! :) if so, what is the dosage and how long do you leave it in there for? do you need to do a complete water change afterwards?

regards

John

[ILLUSN]

i treat in a bucket of water with about 2 tablespoons for 5-10min

[jtchia]

Hi ILLUSN what size bucket?

[ILLUSN]

12L bucket with 10L of water 2 tablespoons will do it 5-10 min will be plenty