2' Yellowcheek aka Elopichthys bambusa, 1 for 5 so far...

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That's the sad end of our 3rd attempt at raising yellowcheeks. The last of the last trio is gone. It was feeding okay but I had to euthanize it as I couldn't see it suffering and swimming in circles anymore because of the bad kink in the spine right behind the head.

If you read the foregoing, you'd know that I believe I have ignorantly starved them of dissolved oxygen early in life at 4"-8" and they developed these skeletal deformities later in life starting at ~12"" for this reason.

24".


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One can only observe and guess the cause.

Hobbyist may not see issues in small fish but we've seen many threads on problems with fish when grown larger.
Large fish requires a lot more nutrition and vitamin. It is important to start young fish right. Mainly it's feeding habits. Some older fish will not accept change when set in their ways and may end up killing themselves in it's subborn struggle to change.

My guess in your case is the bent spine is related to diet and sun light. Just my opinion.

From Google:

bent spine.jpg
 
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Thank you Ken. Yes, vitamin C explanation has come up too in my homework.

I chose the DO deficiency as more likely because I've not had such problems whatsoever with the prior two batches of yellowcheeks, who were raised in much better stirred tanks, without the stifling insect screen, fine-mesh dividers, versus the last batch. All three batches had the same diet, the same amount of light. If anything, the diet for the last batch was better, as much as NLS pellets @$12/lb are better than Ziegler pellets at under $1/lb. Only the amount of stirring was different. I understood it in retrospect.
 
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Trying again: one 10-incher from PF. Looks like it had been fed live. Pays no attention to cut fish. After 3 days saw it catching some pellets (for catla) in the strong current, so hope for a soon progress.

 
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The cheek has been doing quite well. Not the main focus of this video but I show and talk about it:

 
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