Hi all,
Ive been given (after quite alot of cajoling by me) 2 WCMM by a friend at work, they were being kept in a childs starter tank of approx 5 litres. One of the minnows has a very distended belly none of the scales are sticking out and the fish is eating and swimming normally. The tank had pink gravel in it could it have possibly swallowed any or is it more likely to have an infection/tumor of some sort, any suggestions of what i could do to help this minnow would be gratefully recieved. Ive set up my spare 200litre tank for them with mature filter from my goldie tank. Thanks Lisa

Hi LisaB
Female WCMM have quite distended bellies compared to the males. If the fish is behaving normally and your water params are all good then I wouldn't worry too much. If you could post a pic that would help to confirm.
By the way, WCMM are kept in shoals of 6 or more. If you could manage to get a few more they will look beautiful! (they're one of my faves)

Thanks for the reply fishface, the belly of the minnow does look abnormally large to me and quite lumpy looking (will try to get a pic up tomorrow) although i dont have much experience of these minnows to be honest, my friend said its been like that for several months now and was the same size as the others when she got them,there was 5 originally but the 3 others died a week after she got them probably due to being put in an uncycled 5 litre tank i should think. Thanks Lisa

Edit- Water params are Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0 and Nitrate 30 (comes out of the tap at that level)

Hi Lisab

I adore wcmm, and have 8 in my 90 litre. As fishface mentioned they are good in a larger shoal - I used to have 4 in together, then added the other 4 - I have noticed a huge difference in their behaviour, they are far more confident and happier

I have 2 ladies (need more ), and yes, they do have quite large bellies (look like they are full of eggs all the time

They are lovely fish !

Good luck, and hope they are ok

My minnows bellies always look slightly lumpy too
Water readings look good. Keep an eye on the Nitrate tho. Try not to let it creep over 40ppm
Def post a pic tho and someone will have a look.

Hi Lisa, I have 9 wcmm and two of the girls have big bellies :)





JON

Thanks guys you've put my mind at rest i'll keep an eye on the minnow and if all is well i'll get them some friends was going to rehome them but my daughter has fallen in love with them and wants to keep them and i must admit they are extremely cute

Fishface will try to get a pic up and keep an eye on nitrates, i'm trying seachem matrix in my goldie tank at the mo but if that doesnt work will be going down the pozzani route. Thanks Lisa

Isn't the seachem matrix supposed to remove nitrate as well? Would be interested to see if it works . No idea what pozzani is meant to do you've baffled me... (it generally doesn't take much tho!)

Hi Fishface2

From what I have read pozzani's are usually plumbed into your water outlet, they then filter out the nitrates - bliss eh!

Doesn't take much normally to baffle me either

PS: I would like one!

Pozzani make drinking water etc filters - one of their variants is a nitrate removal one that you can use to filter your tap water before using it for water changes. Lots of threads in forum about this, and FK members discount from pozzani

http://www.pozzani.co.uk/water-treatm ... 7ast49ndjvotocb7s1ivh2616