So a little back story: I had a small tank with some Puntius Snyderi in it that were just growing out for a while. One of my Zebra obliquidens females was holding so I had to move the barbs out to move the female z.o. in. Fast forward a couple of weeks.
I now have what I though was a very large batch of Zebra O. which I have been feeding but not paying much attention to, until today. While looking at them I saw a fish that I thought was way to skinny and maybe deformed too. Same dark vertical bars as the rest but not right. So I put on my glasses and immediately figure out what has happened. The barbs had spawned before I moved them and their eggs hatched out with the female cichlid in there. The resulting fry are almost the exact same size as the O.b. fry and at that size have bars just like the O.b. I haven`t got an exact count but it explains the large batch of babies in there.
So far the obliquidens have ignored the barbs so I`ll just let them stay together a while longer.
I have been keeping fish for a very long time and this is a first for me. It`s almost like found money.
I now have what I though was a very large batch of Zebra O. which I have been feeding but not paying much attention to, until today. While looking at them I saw a fish that I thought was way to skinny and maybe deformed too. Same dark vertical bars as the rest but not right. So I put on my glasses and immediately figure out what has happened. The barbs had spawned before I moved them and their eggs hatched out with the female cichlid in there. The resulting fry are almost the exact same size as the O.b. fry and at that size have bars just like the O.b. I haven`t got an exact count but it explains the large batch of babies in there.
So far the obliquidens have ignored the barbs so I`ll just let them stay together a while longer.
I have been keeping fish for a very long time and this is a first for me. It`s almost like found money.
