Eeeeep! Baby fish!

[Emika_B]

I was siphoning up plant debris and snail poop from the unoccupied quarantine tank to get it ready for the next batch of fish.  I got all the big stuff up and was starting on the second round of cleanup when I noticed something rather not debris-like at the top of the tank.  It was baby fish!  I counted about 6 but I have no idea how many I sucked up and tossed out in the grass with the first round of siphoning.  😞

The last fish in the quarantine were rummy nose tetras and dwarf neon rainbows.  I really wasn’t expecting babies from either school since I wasn’t doing anything to encourage it.  Now I wonder if there are babies in the main tank.

I’ve never had baby fish other than guppies so I’m a bit out of my depth with these guys.  I have frozen baby brine so I plopped a cube in for them.  If I manage to keep them alive I do have the Co-op’s fry food but those granules are pretty big, more guppy fry size.  These guys are tiny and nearly all eyes!  Really hard to get photos of but here’s one of the little guys.

 

[ARMYVET]

THATS AWESOME!!  CONGRATS!

 

[Emika_B]

Do you all think Repashy powder would be good food for them?  I’m not sure I can manage infusorium and I’ve never seen vinegar eels.  Any other really tiny baby fish food I should think about?

[CalmedByFish]

 I use a pill crusher to smash pellets as fine as flour. It's an idea. Among my options, I just pick whichever one has the highest amount of protein and fat.

 

[kammaroon]

You can try crushed flakes. I use a disposable chopstick and use it to smash the flakes into tiny bits like pestle and mortar.

[Colu]

You can feed a selection of foods to your fry Crushed flake Sera micron hikari Frist bites baby brine shrimp aquarium co-op fry food 

Edited January 31, 2022 by Colu

[Emika_B]

Wow!  Thanks all for your ideas.  I have a few food items I can powderize and should provide a good variety for them.  Wish I knew what they were but I guess I’ll know soon enough.  I’ll keep you posted.  Mahalo!

[Daedalus]

If you have an established planted tank the water from that should have some infusoria in it. Green water could work too

[Emika_B]

@Daedalus - Any particular spot in the tank I should look?  I have a rather dense canopy of valisneria and at the bottom some thick crypts and a few open spots that probably have plant litter built up.  Or should I take some water from the filter?

Oops, forgot to add that the quarantine tank they’re in has several stems of anacharis.  Will the infusoria just show up in the debris?  If so, I won’t siphon up the plant bits like I normally would.

Edited May 28, 2021 by Emika_B

[Emika_B]

Hey all.  No sense starting a new post on this since it'd be Eeeeeep!  Baby Fish!2.0. Yeah, more baby fish that I totally wasn't trying for and I'm pretty sure they're dwarf neon rainbows.  Again.

My tank was seriously overgrown with valisneria.  I pulled it all out, trimmed it down to between 12 and 18 inches and replanted about 1/3.  The rest was in a very full 5-gallon bucket.  For whatever reason I plopped about half into the hospital tank (unoccupied at the time) the rest went into the compost.

Fast forward about a month and one of the platties has an odd spot on its head so I was going to put it in the hospital tank.  The valisneria was rotting away so I just pulled it out and was getting ready to siphon up debris and do a water change before adding my platy.  Well, just like last time there were these odd little bubbles at the top of the tank that weren't moving like bubbles should.  Stared at them for a bit and yup - baby fish!  They must have been eggs on the valisneria and they hatched in the hospital tank.

Well, the babies were moved into the big tank in their Ziss breeder box and the questionable platy is in the hospital tank.  I'm feeding the babies Hikari First Bites and they seem to be doing quite well.  One is almost large enough to be in the big tank but I'll probably leave him in the playpen a bit longer.  Now if I can just convince my *very* egg-heavy rummy nose girls to plop enough eggs for surprise babies ;)

[gardenman]

Fish spawn a lot, we just don't realize it all that much as the eggs and fry get eaten. Many will spawn after dark also, so unless you can see in the dark you don't know it. By the time the lights come on in the morning the eggs and fry can be gone. For most common fish, getting them to spawn is not the hard part. It's everything else that's hard.

[Emika_B]

Gardenman - I tried a couple of times to get the rummies to breed but they didn’t seem to keen on it.  Oh well.  I’m thinking I’ll keep a corner of the tank rather jungle-y for any surprise babies and hope for the best.  I’m used to live bearer babies - easy to spot and tell what they are.  These egg layers are harder.  I was shocked how much the babies are ‘clear’ for lack of a better word.  Survival mechanism I guess, until they’re big enough to not get eaten.  Still fun to find these little guys, though.  I hold out hope for the rummies!