i dont know if my fish is pregnant!

Question
Hi!!  My name is Maddy.  I have 7 fish in and I am sorry but I do not know how big or how muuch water my tank holds.  it was a hand-me-down and my uncle is the one who knows all of that!!  I have 7 fish and I love them all!!  I have 4 tetras, one of them is a silver tipped tetra.  It` s stomach is very large and sje scares away the 3 other tetras in the tank.  Every time I check on her she is at the top of the tank.  If she is pregnant, how do i make her comfortable??  Thanks a bunch,  Maddy  <3

Answer
Hi Maddy
Here's a link, if you take a tape measure and measure your tank's length, width, and height and put it in the boxes, it'll tell you what size tank you have:

http://badmanstropicalfish.com/conversion.html

I did a search on the silver tipped tetras, the females are more of a grey or silver color and the males are brown or copper colored.  Now, if it is a female, she may be full of eggs, which is why her belly looks bigger.  But, if she's the only silver tipped tetra in the tank, there won't be any babies without a male silver tipped tetra in the tank.  
Other possible reasons for the bigger belly, does it get smaller after awhile, and look bigger after it eats?  

It could be constipated, try feeding all the fish the inside of a pea at least once a week.  

It also may be an internal bacterial infection called dropsy.  That is usually caused by poor water quality.  You'd need to get a test kit that tests the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates in the water.  Ammonia and nitrites should be 0 ppm, and nitrates under 20 ppm. There's really no treatment for it, best thing is to try to prevent it by doing frequent water changes, at least once a week change out 25% of the water.

Here's a link with a little bit of information on those tetras:

http://madhunag.tripod.com/silvertippedtetra.html

Hope that helps and let me know if you have more questions.

Christy