# GBR with bright red belly?



## kitchell (Oct 2, 2010)

I have a 125 gal. tank with now 5 GBR's. I lost 1 last week.*** tested the water all was fine and had no other problems.the 1 i lost had a red belly which was not normal.Now i noticed another has a red belly. does anyone know what this could be?


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## Chromedome52 (Jul 25, 2009)

A red belly is usually a sign of being a female very ready to breed. However, there are various illnesses that can cause a different kind of red belly. Without a picture, I couldn't hazard a guess.


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## marvo (Nov 24, 2010)

[No message]


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## marvo (Nov 24, 2010)

new here what are gbrs


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## kitchell (Oct 2, 2010)

Chromedome52 said:


> A red belly is usually a sign of being a female very ready to breed. However, there are various illnesses that can cause a different kind of red belly. Without a picture, I couldn't hazard a guess.


This is the best pic I could get


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## kitchell (Oct 2, 2010)

marvo said:


> new here what are gbrs


german blue ram welcome to the board


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## marvo (Nov 24, 2010)

ty now i see the fish i know what gbr's are..


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## Chromedome52 (Jul 25, 2009)

Definitely a girl, looking for a good time! 

It is possible a male did your other one in. Normally courtship isn't that nasty, but tank bred fish can sometimes display aggressive tendencies beyond normal wild instinct.


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## DeadFishFloating (Oct 9, 2007)

My experience has always been that wild caught fish are much nastier than tank bred fish. But when it comes to establishing territories, pairing up and spawning, there isn't much difference between the two.

If the tank isn't large enough, some one has to go, by what ever means necessary. Oh, and we owners/keepers aren't the ones who decide if a tank is large enough or not. If your pair of six inch Blue acaras decide that your 55 gallon tank is only large enough for them and thier cloud of fry, don't get angry that they killed your prize rotkeil severum.


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## kitchell (Oct 2, 2010)

i have no idea whats going on with my tank. all my rams are dead.they died 1 at a time several days apart.now 1 of my apistos is looking bad also.my water is testing fine,temp 80 degrees.iam doing weekly water changes about 30-40%.i have 3 apistos,2 green sererums,1large pleco,3 ottos.


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## toume (Oct 7, 2010)

Were these rams newly added?
Where did you get them from? (local breeder, or pet store?)

Was there an ammonia or nitrite spike?

Maybe the rams brought a disease? Did you quarantine?

I've noticed that often GBRs are pumped full of hormones, to make the colors stand out and make the fish look good. Makes them easy to sex, but unfortunately, it really hurts the fish--makes their immune systems crash. If these were new fish showing color, then I'm thinking this is what happened...a GBR is only that bright when they're ready to breed (like said previously); however, they rarely pair up and color up this way in the fish store tanks (should be more stressed and lose their color). <- All my GBRs have come with hormones like that, except the ones I got directly/specifically from a local hobbyist to avoid this.

If they were sick too, then their bodies probably couldn't handle whatever internal parasite, etc. that they had (happened to me with one I adopted--ich + hormomes = death).

But, if you've had them for awhile, and they were fine (like a month), then it wasn't hormones and they were coloring up naturally.


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## kitchell (Oct 2, 2010)

*** had for 3 months.got from lfs.did not qurantine they where first fish added with a pleco in new set up.i brought 6 of them 1 died in 2 days.waited until next weekend added apistos 6 also.lost 2 of them in first 4 days.waited untill weekend again added seviums 4 of those and 3 ottos at same time.lost 1 sevium.tank was fine no loses for 6 weeks since.then grb looked fatter and had red belly.i noticed this while feeding.it was swimming and active.next day stayed in corner on bottom.day after dead.days later another 1 samething happened.now all rams are gone and just lost an apisto this morning.i have not seen any spikes in water tests.idk whats going on.any info or advice would be greatly helpfull.


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## toume (Oct 7, 2010)

You might want to post in the illness section. 
I think you've got a disease in your tank.

Any sunken bellies that you've noticed?


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