Eggbound Elongatus Mpanga

Just thought i'd share this as I have never experienced an eggbound fish.
Apparently it is pretty rare. One of our Mpanga was looking a little bloated and we noticed she had an egg, half in & half out. The advice we got was to very gently rub a finger from her throat to her tummy to help it out. I really didn't want to do it & after a lot of reading I found out that it can kill the fish as the ovaries can rupture. It can also be fatal if left...what a dilemma.
In the end she managed to pass it and seems a little less bloated now, here is a pic..

Ah the poor thing - what causes it MC - is it just because she hasn't done it before or is there some other reason?

I'm glad she's ok anyway.

I think it's something to do with her being very young & having smaller tubes. I thought she would die, another bit of advice was to give her an epsom salt bath to clear her out. I was going to try that but when I was taking the rock down to try & catch her, she bolted & that's when she dropped it, thankfully

Ohhh, that sounds bad, poor little thing. I'm glad she's oknow

Wow that's bad. Is it likely to happen again MC? How often do they lay eggs?

I hope it doesn't happen again, she did have a struggle with it. They lay eggs quite often if they get an interested male. I think as she's very young it was just a case of producing the egg which became too big for her to pass it.
We did have a case of malawi bloat a few wks back, the blockage in their guts from this can stop other things passing so am hoping it was just that & it wont happen again.