The ability of fry to survive continues to amaze me

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Apr 2, 2002
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New York
Over my almost 23 years in the hobby I have seen some pretty wild stuff involving fry.

In my first tank (a 45 gal.) I had swordtails among other things and they made bibies. Soon I needed a grow space and i got my second tank (a 15 gal,) for that purpose. I had figured out cycling using ammonia after using fish in the 45. So the 15 was set up, plants moved in from the 45 and I began regular additions of ammonia. The one evenig i discovered two tine fry in the tank. I stopped adding ammonia. They turned out to be zebra danios and likley they got intot the 15 as eggs on the plants I moved. These fry grew up and lived a long life.

Years later I was doing my summer terrace tanks and one planted tyank was used to Q new blue eyed rainbows and a few other fish. AFter moving the fish out I wanted to ekp he filter cyled and the plants parked, So it all went int a rubbermaide outside and I began dosing ammonia to kep the filter alive. A fish friend came by and I was showing her the terrace stuff and she asked me if I knew what the fish in the Rubbmermaid were. I said no fish in there as I am dosing ammonia. She was right, eggs made it to the container and hatched. They too lived long lives.

This year I began unwinding my tanks selling brreding groups and many offspring. The goal is to reduce the number of tanks over time. So I recently found myself with 4 empty tanks. I put 2 into use. one with a new reverse trio of plecos and the other with 6 black corys I got recently. But in my fish space, which is for plecos, I had two empty 33L I was keeping cycled with ammonia pending rearranging.

Today I got a box of fish and shrimp and had considered using half of the divided empty 33L for Q. I had added ammonia to it last night and I went out the the space to do a big water change on the tank before the box of new stuff came. As I approached the tank I spotted a live pleco fry under an inch on the back glass. I have no clue what species it is as the wood piled in there wame from other pleco tanks. So Now I had had to stop adding ammonia to keep this silly 1 inch fish alive. I cannot move it to any pther pleco tank as i have ni idea what species it is. The pelcos I spawn can be impossible to ID until they are much bigger and even then it can be difficult.

I have to believe that tiny guy has been in there for at least a few weeks. I moved all of the offspring in that tank elsewhere about 2-3 weeks ago or more. So it may just be a hitchhiker inside a piece of wood added to the tank.

So I have now mannaged to discover on three occassions in a 20+ year period where fish have been born or moved unknowingly to tanks devoid of fish which were then being dose ammonia. In total 5 fish have survived this on 3 different occasions over the decades. This never ceases to amaze me.
 

FreshyFresh

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Jan 11, 2013
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Joel
I love to hear these experiences.

I believe it's a combination of you being an excellent fish keeper and a little bit of right place at right time mixed in.
 
Apr 2, 2002
3,531
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New York
I could not leave it in that tank. i need to be dosing ammonia. But nit knowing he species for sure, I could not put it into any of my other pleco related tanks. Nor could I put it inot either the Q with the Live Aquaria survivors nor the black schultzei tanks as they are at about 76F and my plecos really need it warmer. I was also a bit concerned about tanks with my larger amanos too, So I had no for sure safe place for it. So I moved it into a planted 29.

In the tank are 6 or 7 sterbae cory, the 4 surviving harlequin raspboras from L. A. and a number of amano shrimp and a bunch of assassin snails. That is about as safe as any place I could have chosen.
 
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