Well, sombody spawned!

[buddha]

I was playing with my 3 year old this morning and she said she wanted to count the fish. So we were laying on the floor watching them after I had just put in some BBS fry a few minutes earlier. Then I noticed something dart from out of the lace rock I have in the tank. At first I thought it was maybe some debris floating around, but after closer inspection, sure enough there is a single little fry hiding in the rock, swimmng out for BBS that swim by. It's way past the yolk stage, about a quarter inch in length. I can even make out little stripes already. Now I'll have to keep an eye out in the rest of the tank and see what else may be hiding. Pretty cool.

[Sean]

Who spawned?
Congrats on the spawn buddha!

[buddha]

My Brevis did. I have no idea what pair are the parents.

I've counted at least 4 little guys so far that I've seen. It's fun to watch them dart out from the lilttle holes in the lace rock chasing BBS.

 I'm not going to even attempt to retrieve them at this point. They've made it this far on their own, I'm hoping they have enought hiding places for now at their size. I'm going to pull some of my smaller shells from my would-be fry tank and hope they take up residence in them and I'll pull them out that way. The only fish I believe that would be interested in eating them are the adult Leleupi in the tank.

I'll post a pic or video when I get a chance for kicks.

[fish head]

that's exactly what is happening in my brevis tank

fry used to disappear quickly, and now they're all over the tank, but I'm still not seeing much parenting behavior

(I took 9 out and moved them, to see what happens!)

[buddha]

I think the BBS feedings is what's gotten them by. Had I been not feeding them to the adults (my Cyps really love them too) I don't know if they would have been able to forage enough food to survive. Dunno.

I made my first water change today in about 3 or 4 weeks, so my biological filter seems to being doing what it's supposed to. I'm hoping I can get a bunch of these little guys  and maybe start a shellie only tank. We'll see.

Now if I can just get my Cyps to tank a hint from their tank-mates...............

[buddha]

Ok, so I've got a question.

I went looking for one of my males today....hadn't seen him in a while. All is good, he just had a hiding spot I didn't know was there.

Anyway, while I had the hood off, one of the first places I always look is the sump return and I found half a dozen or so fry. These guys I can easily siphon to remove and I've even put some small shells in there for easy removal. I currently have  a fry tank up and ready to go, but I put a subdominant male in there because the others had nipped his tail clean off. I'd like to move the fry in here but my question is will the adult male leave these fry alone? Thanks ahead of time.

[Sean]

I would say no. I've tried putting it some older brevis fry with younger caudopunctatus fry and all my caudopunctatus fry got eaten. The brevis fry were only like 1/2"

[buddha]

That was my line of thinking too. He owns the little 20 and I'm sure he'd eat them out of spite!