Waterlogged

The female endler's died today. I'm continuing to treat that tank, hoping the remaining male endler's and the panda corys survive.

Lost one of the tiny panda corys yesterday. That makes the sixth panda I've lost since I started keeping them. I originally started with a school of five on 8/8. By 8/20 there were only 3. I purchased 2 more of around the same size to replace the ones that died. They dropped off one by one until there were only 2 left, which I moved into the small tank on 10/24. I bought two much larger pandas to bring the school back to four. Now there are three. We'll see if I can maintain that. The tiny fish can break your heart.

In other more positive news, my bronze corys (my first fish) spawned yesterday. It looks like I have two females and three males in the 29 gallon tank I haven't pictured yet. There were only a few eggs visible (perhaps 25) from two rounds of spawning (early morning, and around noon). We managed to remove around 15-20 of them and place them in a 1 gallon nursery tank to see if any hatch. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, because from what I understand the first spawnings are seldom fertile.

Seven or eight cory fry were seen swimming in the nursery tank today. I hope they make it. Thee are also three tiny coral platies getting bolder in the 7g hex. It looks like they may make it to adulthood.

This is a single cory fry in the corner of the nursery tank. It has seven or eight siblings, so far as we can tell.

Here’s a closer look:

There was a second round of spawning yesterday. The collected result was around 30 or 40 eggs. I was able to watch it this time, instead of dashing off to class. The entire process didn't look like much fun at all.

The first batch of fry turned out to be a bit larger than we guessed. There are at least twelve of the little wigglers. They seem to be doing great so far.

The cories started to hatch from the second batch spawning today. Just a couple so far, but if it's anything like the last batch there will be a lot more. The first batch may be up to 16-17 by now, they seem to be appearing from nowhere. They still don't resemble cories yet, although they already behave like them.

Before all the baby fish started showing up, I had intended to document each tank I have and the fish that reside there. Albert, the sole resident in my open top tank, doesn't seem to be happy with all the attention the fry are getting. Or maybe it's just the damn snail that snuck into his tank.

Albert is the kitchen fish, offering advice throughout the day.

The first spawn (now 10 days old) are around 1/4" long and are starting to pick up some color. Krista has remarked that they seem to grow a new body part every day. The current count is about 20.

The new hatchlings are doing fine at around 3-4 days old, and are scarcely half that size. I counted about 35 on the second day, but they've gone into their "hiding" phase where they spend most of their time buried in the filter/debris on the bottom of the tank. They aren't moving around much, but neither did the first batch at this stage.

If all these guys survive, I'm going to have a lot of fish to deal with.

A shaft of light went across the 2.5g tank when I transfered the first cory fry a couple of days ago. There are 19-20 now-- every time I count I get a different number. Krista insisted that I take a snap. I liked this one because you can really see the whiskers.

The weird thing about these guys is that I seem to lose a single fry each day but the total seems to remain the same. The latest estimate is around 100 total.

The little buggers are difficult to photograph.

The pandacide continues. A day after I took this, the little fella was dead. I noticed today that several of them appear to be infected by some sort of fungus. I started treating them with melafix/pimafix but the prognosis for the remaining five panda cories probably isn't good.

This complicates my plans for the 5g corner tank. I finally succumbed to the lure of mail-order fish. I ordered 5 pairs of Endler's livebearers today from a breeder in Tampa, Florida. They have been out of stock at A World of Fish, the only local dealer that keeps them, for about a month now. I really wanted to get more. With this outbreak, they can't go into this tank for a while.

But I've got a little eclipse 3g tank I can set up in the meantime. Too many fish tanks around this house.

The seven gallon hex tank is the oldest tank in the house at 5 months (as of yesterday). It's first residents were some bronze cories (the same ones that just reproduced themselves). It took a lot of trial and error to get plants to thrive in it. I suspect that it's the plants that allowed these little sunset coral dwarf platies to survive their parents.