Our fish had babies!

We bought a 20 gal freshwater aquarium ages ago - for cat entertainment.

Well - they never expressed any interest.

Gary got into it for a while - but it became a hassle to keep it up, so we decided that as the last fish died off (we had danios that were over 2 years old), we'd not replace them, and eventually get rid of the aquarium.

Well - we kept the tank and filters clean like we should.... and the last danio died the day after the second-to-last danio died. That left one white shark and 2 of those algae sucker fish. The next day - seven teeney teeney weeney fish were swimming around! The gestation period, apparently is 2 - 3 days. So they must have laid and fertizlied the eggs just before they died!

And now we have baby danios - fish that would normally grow for probably like a year before they even make it to a pet store for sale. So we're looking at another few years of aquarium!

But it was really cool to know we were (apparently) keeping the right conditions for the fish.

And MAN do they grow fast! Last week they were specks you could barely see - like little dots darting around. Now they're little fish. It's pretty neat!

Laurie

How fun!! One of our chiclids is pregnant (we think!) and are anxiously awaiting babies

Congrats, I love baby fishies! It's always exciting to see little ones in the tank. I have some baby gups and some Goodieds that were born not too long ago.

Cichlids are egglayers, she could be ripe with eggs. The last cichlids that I had spawn were the discus late last summer and that's been it. I lost one of the fish out of the pair (the male I think) and haven't had a spawn out of the resrt of them yet. I lost the babies too. They were about the size of a penny and just started dropping off a few at a time. I never did figure out why.

That is so cool

Yippy .... how kewl

It's actually really great the parents died before the babies hatched... our fish had babies once (live birth) and the other fish, of the same school, followed the birthing mother around eating the babies as the emerged. it was really awful.

I breeded guppies once and it was great seeing the little guys born. But they didn't make it which was sad. But at least I was able to experience baby fishes.

Glad to hear about you baby fishes, hope things continue going good.

wow, what a brill surprise, seeing those little dots whizzing about !!

I had a fry once too! I'd gotten some cherry barbs, two females and a male. Well, a few weeks later, I was doing maintainence and a teeny little red dot of a fish decided to peek from under the decor. He was so tiny, I'm amazed that he survived for so long without getting eaten. He grew into a healthy male and lived for about three more years. I love going to the petstore and seeing the guppy fry, they are too cute fore words

How fun!! I want a aquarium so bad, but just dont know where it would go.

That is so exciting! I wonder if that is their life cycle: that when they successfully reproduce they lay eggs then the female dies, then the male fertilizes them and he dies....as mentioned above, it would prevent scavenging by the parents!
Congrats on the new babies

The Danios lived for about 2 years before dying - which I think is normal for aquarium life. The research I've done on them (now), it seems that in the wild they maybe live a year - so it would seem they die after laying the eggs. I don't know why the male would die - but maybe it was just his time.

But I can't believe how fast these things grow! They were little specs we could barely see - and now they're like 1/4" to almost 1/2" big! You still can't really see them in the camera, or I'd post pics. But they're starting to school - and it's really just so cool to watch this going on!

Gary's so scared when he cleans the bottom of the tank now with that sucky thing. But so far so good......

Laurie

Just wanted to ask you something- do you have them in their own little nesting box (you attach it to the aquarium and feed the fry in that and keep them there safely away from the larger fish that might eat them until they are big enough to roam the aquarium. Petstores sell them all day long! They should help keep the babies safe from being eaten by the other fish. (you mentioned you still had two plecos and a shark. Do you have a red finned shark? If so- watch him/her...they might eat the fry. I had several red tailed sharks for a while and they started eating one another. / Congradulations on your fish

It is an albino red finned shark. We had them in a separate aquarium (a small one) for the first week. But it turns out we'd missed one (never saw it). When we saw it swimming around, we went ahead and dumped the babies back in the main tank. There's still 7 of them there! The shark seems very uninterested - he rarely leaves his "ship" and bottom feeds. So I think all's well.

Laurie

Those little nesting boxes actually aren't too good. They don't provide enough circulation, and the little babies die.

The best way to keep them safe is some floating plants. The babies can hide from the sharks that way. Danios especially would like floating plants, like anacharis and hornwort, as they tend to swim towards the surface a lot.

A bonus with using live plants is that they provide a supplemental live food source because there are microorganisms living on them that the fry can eat.

How are the fry doing???