Mystery Fish Fry - time will tell

FishEZ

Plecostomus
MFK Member
May 16, 2017
171
159
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Brampton, Ontario
www.fishez.ca
Have you ever had this happen to you? I've once moved fish out of a tank and put them in a larger tank somewhere else but then after 3 days noticed that in the old tank (which by chance I didn't dump the water out) I discover a missed fish swimming around. It must have been hiding in the corner or camouflaged in some way. Maybe we have all had that happen to us, but..... here's a unique story for you. It's one of the most amazing things that has ever happened to me so far.

I had most of my smaller tanks (about 9) dried out since I was on vacation and wouldn't be around for a few weeks. All breeding stopped for a while and the sexes were separated in anticipation of my return. But now that I got back from vacation, I decided to start up the tanks again. I positioned the tanks where I wanted them, found heaters for each and started to fill them with water. After a few days I needed the sponge filters. I had left most of the sponge filters in tanks with fish so that they would still be in good working order when I went to use them again. But others I had dried out and now wanted to use them, so connected up the air to those and put them with other tanks where a working filter was operational so that the one would help the other get re-started in its cycle. More often than not, upon introduction of a sponge filter without fish there accumulates brown muck which builds up in small piles on the bare-bottom. Often too there's a type of worm that begins to inhabit the tanks because without fish, the worms can come out of the filters and survive. One never sees these little animals when there's fish in the tank. This one 10G tank near the floor level caught my attention because there was a lot of muck there and so I was just eye-balling the little worms and saw some new animals that looked like small slugs crawling up the sides of the tank. There were a few around. I had never seen that kind before. As I continued to gaze, there was something at the bottom that caught my eye.

It had two eyes and a tail and swam about. I was astounded at what I was gazing at! The small creature had to be a fish. It looked like a fry that was free swimming and probably about 5 to 7 days old. What? How could this be? There's no fish in the tank and there hasn't been for over a month. I racked my brain for a few hours contemplating the new find. Knowing that spontaneous generation is out of the question, I have only one single explanation. One of the two sponge filters in this tank must have been in a tank with both adult males and females. Most all tanks though had only males or only females. There is one tank with all males but does have some immature rosey barbs growing out with adult males. However, the problem with that explanation is that when I looked at the tank, the sponge filter was still there. I never removed it. So after a few hours of disbelief, I've re-looked at the whole fish room and have come to the conclusion that there's one tank with adult pairs in them which has to be the source. What's in that tank? I have 13 immature Filament Barbs that can't be sexed yet and along with them are 9 adult wild caught Myleus Schomburgkii (Wide bar silver dollars). So there you have it. Could this possibly be a Schomburgkii fry? It behooves me to let him grow in this 10G tank to find out. Time will tell. So far, the little guy is doing great. I guess without competition, it's not too hard to do.
 
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MrsE88

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Mar 9, 2017
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Are you sure it's a fish fry and not an insect larvae of some sort?
Last month while cleaning one of my filters from a planted tank I found what looked like a dragonfly larvae. Pretty strange since we don't have any dragonflies in the house or outside now that it's so cold. Weird things happen. Haha
 

FishEZ

Plecostomus
MFK Member
May 16, 2017
171
159
61
Brampton, Ontario
www.fishez.ca
Are you sure it's a fish fry and not an insect larvae of some sort?
Yes, of course, I had to blink twice because i couldn't believe it. I will try to post a photo or two as soon as I can. Maybe a short video so that you can see what I mean. I've been breeding a lot of fish this past year and I know that a fish looks like even when it looks like a "glass splinter." I have 500+ filament barbs and over 200+ tiger barbs (green and albino) along with rosey barbs. I have also raised a batch of Giant Danios this year. I am pretty sure it's a fish. I just can't be 100% certain until I see it grow up a bit as to what it is. Maybe somehow one of the barbs got in there. But in those tanks, the males and females have been separated for some months.
 

FishEZ

Plecostomus
MFK Member
May 16, 2017
171
159
61
Brampton, Ontario
www.fishez.ca
Last night I attempted to get a quick photo but photos didn't come out well, but here's a short 1 min video of the mystery fish. I hope no one thinks at this point it's not a fish, but I'm open to suggestions. This is a bare-bottom tank so you will see it's reflection in the glass below.

 

FishEZ

Plecostomus
MFK Member
May 16, 2017
171
159
61
Brampton, Ontario
www.fishez.ca
Mystery fry continues to grow. He is now about two weeks old and freely swimming throughout the tank. I have noticed that many fish are different in their swimming habits as a fry. I am ruling out that this fish is a tiger barb because tigers tend to hang around the filter and love to pick at the goodies there. This one doesn't seem to even notice the filter.
 
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