TLDR: I think feeding Moina may have killed some of my Pseudomugil Signifers.
It's a sad day in the fish room, or rather, the fish office. One of my Pseudomugil Signifer males passed - leaving me with only one male and two females. I am used to death and death with fish especially. This passing isn't sad, it's frustrating. I had purchased a group of 6 fish - 4 females and 2 males. One female kicked the bucket during shipping and another female died within 24 hours of arrival. I was left with 2 males and 2 females - not ideal. I thought I'd see what I could do with these guys. The fish were timid for weeks. I never saw them do anything but hide behind the sponge filter in their bare bottom tank. I hadn't even seen them eat. I still have yet to see them eat any flake or pellet foods. I have been feeding them scuds, BBS, worms, and some frozen foods. I finally got some moina colonies running well (which took a surprising amount of effort) and have been feeding them to the signifers in small amounts for about a week. Yesterday I had a stellar moina harvest and did a big feed with all my tanks (I keep multiple Pseudomugil species tanks and one Peudomugil community tank). I guess the Signifers may have over eaten..? Maybe something else? My luminatus, furcatus, and others love to overeat - but not to death... I also noticed the signifers never looked full compared to my other species of blue-eyes. The other three fish in the tank aren't doing much and haven't moved all day. Normally after a big feed of BBS, they are very active with the mop. All other tanks are normal after being fed the same moina. My poor guys - they had finally established pecking order, displaying, and laying eggs. I can not say for certain if the dominant male died or if it was the other guy. As far as water quality, water was changed 3 days ago. I change water 1-2x a week as I am running small bare bottom tanks. The water is RO and conditioned tap mix. I'll change the water again tonight and keep my fingers crossed the other three make it.
P.S. I wrote this a day ago and another female died over last night, even with the 50 percent water change. The remaining male and female are just swimming in the slow current. I plan on rinsing moina in the future in case there was something nasty breeding in their water.
