Dos a female stop producing eggs when no male is present ?

[Andrew]

I have a pair of L333 that i got a while ago.
When they were delivered the female was pretty rotund, infact, looked on the verge of being bloated.
The pair settled well and the female was eating well, so i crossed my fingers everything would be alright.
And suprisingly the pair bred within a couple of weeks of getting them, and the female lost her really rotund shape, and has never got as big since then.
I have heard of the term eggbound, but don't know what it is, dos anybody know what eggbound is or even if it is a true saying ?

Recently i seperated the pair as they were breeding me out of tanks.
Dos a female stop producing eggs now that they is no male in her tank, i am just concerned that she will keep producing eggs and get quite big again, or maybe she is just a greedy plec ?
The pair have large broods and i can not keep them together all the time, my other hypancistrus have much smaller broods and are not as regular as this pair are.

Could the female get eggbound, or is she just a greedy plec ?

 

[bre]

Ok, eggbound is an actual event. It is when an egg laying animal gets ready to lay eggs but the eggs get "stuck" and the animal can't release them. It can cause death in some animals.

What you are referring to is will she still produce eggs without a male. I believe she could still do that. I have had fish lay eggs with no male in the tank. They just remain unfertilised. Sometimes they can also reabsorb eggs if they need to.
Keeping them seperate and giving each them a break can be a good thing, and if your female has lost her shape, she may be better off for a while by herself to regain her health and get her reconditioned to start producing well again.

 

[Andrew]

Thanks for explaining eggbound.
How can you tell the difference between a fish being eggbound, and a fish with bloat ?

The female is fine, nicely plump, not like she was when i first got her.

Didn't word the question well, you are right about what i was asking, dos a female that has been breeding for a while and then the male is removed, stop producing eggs.
I had been thinking she was somehow eggbound when i got her and the change of tank and different water maybe helped her start to lay eggs again, as it was pretty quick when she started breeding in my tanks, and i was a bit worried she might bloat up a bit again if she wasn't breeding.

Though she is a good eater, maybe she was overeating in the shops tank before i got her, and was just a really plump fish.

 

[Rabbit]

It would be difficult to diagnose between eggbound and bloat.
A topographical photo will help if this occurs you should notice the scales raised slightly this would point towards bloat.
All over shape, a gravid female (not 201s) hypan will show a somewhat rounded look but remain within proportion any bloat victim will show a round look almost as if they had swallowed a marble.
The vent may help as well i would imagin eggbound to show a redness to the ventrall area, and feacle matter if your fish dose have bloat no to very little poop will be passed also feeding will become minute.
HTH

 

[Andrew]

Thanks Rabbitt
Helped a lot.