Found African Fry

just before doing tank maintenance saturday morning i was looking around in the tank to see about what we could to do to change things up in the tank. i noticed something moving under one of the ordiments, took a closer look and discovered aliitle fry, it's about 1/2 inch. my wife and i then starting to look even closer and she found one under a proped up sea shell, it's about 1/4 inch. i made a fry box out of a plastic q-tip box w/lid, drilled several tiny holes, made a bracket and hung in the tank. we were able to catch the little ones and put them in the fry box, checked on them a while latter and discovered that the tiny one had sliped out of the box, think it was able to get out where the lid snaps onto the box. haven't found it yet, we hope it made under cover, but chances are it became a snack for one of the others. sorry the pics aren't clearer. this fry is a mixed/hybrid (won't be sold or given away, we'll keep it).

 

we think the dad is the socolofi, he's the tank boss and in his log cave thingy, he had moved just about all gravel out down to the glass. we think the mom may be the red zebra. as far as i know it's not the bumblebee cause i believe he's male, when he was the dominant one he would turn almost black and from what i know only the males will do that. i don't think it could be one of the others because they are about 3 inch, didn't think they bred until they get to adult size.

 

we can't wait either. the strange thing is, we never seen any of them holding and their hasn't been any aggression out of the norm. now that we know there's at least 1 female, would like to get another tank for breeding/grow out and get a matching male for the female.

 

she may not be laying that many eggs cause from the ones that i've seen that were holding had like puffy faces form holding 20 plus eggs and not eat for like a week or two. we would like to get a 75 or 90 to put the africans in and use the 55 as the breeding/growout tank. the first time we found fry there was 3 (didn't get them out in time and were someones snack) and this time we only found 2.

 

i'm leaning towards a 90. for now i think we'll just get the 5 gal set up for this little one, can't stay in the box too long and it can't go in the main tank for awhile. all ready got the filter for it "seeding" in the 55. i've never had to deal with fry so how big should i let this fry get before we put it in the 5 gal and should we get something else to put with it that won't eat it to help keep the parameters in order???

 

ok thanks. we'll have to get a heater, my youngest got ahold of the one we had for the 10gal and broke it. i've got the stuff to make a sponge filter.

 

here are who we think is the ma(red zebra) & pa(socolofi - the blue one) of the fry.

 

thanks dawn, that's what we're thinking too. hopefully when they spawn next time we can catch it sooner and save more than just 1.

 

early this evening my son was looking around in the african tank and found another fry hiding under one of the ordiments. we're think it was the one that escaped from the fry box. it's under good cover so we hope he stays ther for awhile before we try to get it out.

 

so far it's hiding very well, it's still there. the hardest thing is trying to get food down to the little guy. we put off the rescue mission for now. the alphs male has got one of the other fish (female we think) held captive in his cave and has been doing his "thing" coming in and out of the cave with all fins flared and keeping all other fish away. to ensure the safety of the fry that's hiding we would have to remove the older fish and take out the decor to get it out. if there's more mating going on we don't want to stress out the fish more than they all ready are, so we'll just let nature take it's course and get out what we can.

 

hey!! never thought of that. i'll have to look around in the kitchen,i think we may have one, we'll just sterilize it and put it to good use.

 

this is the one the alpha male had captive and i'm about 95% sure she is holding now. this pic is from a couple weeks ago.

my question is: is there a way we can get her out of this tank and put her in another with out her swollowing/spitting out the eggs? we would like to keep as many of them as we can. if they hatch in the main tank it'll be like the others and become snacks.