pregnant dalmation fish???

Question
hello, we (my family) are new to owning a fish tank.  we have 3 dalmation fish in it for the past 12 days (new tank).  anyway, one of the dalmation is keeping itself seperated, hiding, sitting on the botton, even at feeding time, until the food is almost gone and then will come up briefly.  Is it pregnant?  how long is gestation?  do we need to do anything special?  also, our tank is a bit cloudy, any sugestions?  thank you so much for you time...bye for now...Janet

Answer
Hi Janet,
 It is normal for a new tank to have some issues with cloudiness. It takes a while (about 6 weeks typically) for a tank to "cycle" to reach some sort of balance where various "good" bacteria reach sufficient levels in the gravel and on surfaces in the tank to handle the waste products of the fish to convert those into less toxic compounds. In the meantime, the water chemistry is out of balance and various other bacteria tend to proliferate.  The "cloudiness" is actually these bacteria. They themselves aren't really a problem.  They just indicate that the tank isn't quite right yet so do not add any more fish to the tank.  

  A fish off on its own could be pregnant or it could be sick and the two situations look very much alike.  Gestation is a few weeks.  As for "doing something", that is up to you.  If she is pregnant, she will get noticably fatter in the next week or so.  When she gives birth, she and the other fish in the tank will see the babies as food so you might want to separate the kids.  

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
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