Surprise while trimming

[Novabound]

I have a hospital tank where i keep lose plant trimming to grow out. My theory is the dense vegetation also helps reduce stress in fish while quarantined. 

I was trimming plants in my guppy tank and i went to throw a plant in there, and i noticed a tiny blue dot moving. I dropped to the floor and looked closer and saw a cloud of blue dots. There's fry in there. I haven't had a fish in there for like, 2 months.

The last fish i had in there were forktail rainbow fish and i left them in there a little longer than intended (5 weeks) before moving them to my main tank.

Zero clue how the fry have been surviving or how long ago they hatched. Thankfully i have fry food on hand and started feeding immediately. I'm still blown away that i somehow bred fish.

[Candi]

One of the most rewarding things about this hobby, I think everyone should experience breeding a fish. Keep us posted as they get bigger. 

[Andy's Fish Den]

It's always awesome to find baby fry in a tank when you hadn't done anything intentional to try to spawn the fish. Good luck raising the fry!

[braids]

I think with planted tanks fish do what fish do naturally. They forage. And this is totally just my opinion I haven't read any research on this, just my observations. It comes from discovering, like you did, the fry you didn't know were there. Fish are so old. Older than we are. They know what to do, and at least with planted tanks we've provided the environment for them to be able to forage. It seems like we think because we've put them in contained water that somehow they forget their knowledge. They don't. We've simply reduced the size of their world and tried to replicate nature to the best of our ability. We collectively spend oodles of time and money to try to replicate what mother nature does seemingly effortlessly.  Congrats you did a good job!😇

 

[Vicki]

I’m kind of jealous!  Congratulations!  

[BlackLabelCarling]

That’s awesome! I recently found Betta fry in a tank where I thought the parents had eaten all the eggs, but nope! They were living off microorganisms on the wood, plants and botanicals. Gotta love surprise fry! 

[tolstoy21]

That happens to me with Zerba Danios and Salt and Pepper Corys.

I'll go to set up a new tank, transfer some java moss, next thing I know, there are babies.

I Oops spawned about 25 danios while cycling a crystal red shrimp tank.

I also had a single cory fry hatch and grow out large enough for me to see and transfer it while I was doing a month long fishless ammonia cycle.

I neglected this tank a lot, restarted the cycle once and let the nitrates hit 100ppm. I have no idea how this little guy endured the prolonged ammonia and nitrite spikes, and lack of food (must have survived on infusoria and melting java moss) but lil' guy is in the community tank now with relatives and thriving.

 

Edited October 1, 2020 by tolstoy21