15 wait 19 new babies

We have at least 15 new babies.
13 are safely in the breeders tank, and DH is busily trying to catch the rest.

It took us an hour and a half to catch the first 8, at that time we thought there were only 2 more, and we didn't want to stress the fish more, so we quit.

We then did a partial water change, and after about 15 after that was finished I noticed 6 more.

Wow.

LOL DH just caught 4 more, and found 4 more, so that's at least 17 babies.

Daredevil is living up to her name, swimming up to the python to check it out, and almost getting caught.

She's trying to get into the tank with the babies, but since she is swimming with the adults now I told DH to leave her out.

I better go help him, I'll let you now how many we have.

These are Red's I thought she'd given birth or aborted this morning, but we didn't see any babies until tonight.

I'm not sure if she's done giving birth, or if we interrupted birth with a partial water change (oops) but she's acting normal, just smaller. I can't imagine where those 6 babies were hiding while we were doing all of the moving around though.

Anyways, I'm off to help DH catch more.

If I'm calculating right Blue Girl should be due Sat!

Wow.

We might have to get a heater for our 10 gallon and get it going as a fry tank.

Marshmallow

I went to Walmart last night, and fell in love with another betta!

Since I have an empty one gallon aquarium just sitting there....

Well, I had to get him.

I tried not too, really I did!

But right when we were about to leave I asked DH to come look at him again with me, and we got him.

DH said we could get him a bigger aquarium, but I figured that we could wait. A 5 gallon was only $30, and I probably should have gotten it, so we can use it as a quarantine tank when we get a bigger tank....Yes I've only had the big tank a month, and I've already got another one gallon up, and plans for a bigger aquarium so DH can have some fish too.

When I saw Marshmallow in the store he had a white body, with a touch of pink irredescense to it, and white fins with a touch of blue.

After less than 3 minutes in the new one gallon, with clean water, and a bit of java moss, he turned pink with lavendar fins. You can still see a touch of blue and white in the fins, but he looks like a completely different fish!

He's still a little nervous, and I just cleared out the area around the tank of everything red, since he is flaring and hiding when we bring a red cup near the tank.

I've heard most bettas flare at red, although Captain Jack doesn't. I'm not sure why that color sets them off though.

This bottom picture is a picture of Marshmallow while he is still in the cup from the fish store, the top one is of Marshmallow right after we put him in his new aquarium.

What a difference! I'd heard that you could bring a betta home from the store and realize that he was a completely different color at home, in less stressful conditions.

I was surprised at how different Marshmallow looked in his cup, and how quickly he changed after we moved him to his new tank.

Since smaller tanks don't cycle, and have to be cleaned more often I've heard that it's ok not to put gravel in the tank - that way it's easier to clean the tank, and if you're not doing a water change that day, you can just take a turkey baster, and suck up all the gunk from the bottom of the tank to keep the tank cleaner between changes.

I've also moved one of the treasure chests from the old aquarium into the new aquarium so that Marshmallow would have a little place to rest.

Anyways, if you want to read more about the fish (or see pictures), they have their very own squidoo lens at My fishies.

New Fish!

Unfortunately it looks like only one of the fry has survived.

I'm not sure if it's a male or a female, but I call "her" Daredevil. She has been swimming with the adults for about 3 days now, and although Red will go after her every once in a while, she doesn't run too far.

I saw a teeny spot of black on her tail around 1/21/2007, and on 1/23/2007 I noticed a little yellow color right at the base of her tail. DH thinks its red though, so we'll see what color it really is.

We also got 3 spotted cory cats last night.

They look like they are having a lot of fun, and 2 seem to be swimming around together while the third one is off by himself.

They are pretty fast, so it's hard to get pictures of them, but we are trying.

I was planning on getting oto's to clean the tank, but while we were at Petco they put a sign on the oto's saying they weren't for sale...then at Petsmart there were more dead ones than live ones in the tank.

I knew oto's were hard to acclimate to the tank, since they are usually caught in the wild, and I just don't want to deal with more dead fish :-(.

The spotted cories help clean the substrate (we're actually using aquating planting media), and the main reason I wanted the oto's was to clean the algae and the substrate.

Fortunately I realized that the magnet algae cleaner we got from walmart really works, so I don't need to get a fish specifically to clean the algae off the glass.

Finally...a Picture or Two

Well, I finally have a picture for you.

Unfortunately the babies are so small, and they like to hide, so I couldn't get a picture of them.

I have noticed a smaller baby, so I'm almost thinking that we have two batches of fry a couple of days apart. I've only seem two fish at a time for the past several days, but I just noticed that one of them was a lot smaller than the other this morning, so I'm not sure what's going on.

We did buy another decoration, with holes that are small enough for the fry to get in, but not big enough for the adults, so hopefully that will help they fry survive

Guppy Fry Update

I saw 2 of the fry at the same time this morning.

They are getting a little bit bigger, and a lot more daring.

Both of them were seen swimming out into the middle of the tank, and when one of them was chased by Captain Jack, the betta, he leisurely made his way to his hiding spot.

Ok, it wasn't really leisurely, but it was nowhere near as fast as he was swimming yesterday.

3 of the fry were seen at the same time yesterday morning.

They all look so similar, it's hard to tell them apart, but one of them looks like it has the faintest black outline along the edge of it's body.

I can't wait to see them all grown up, and I'm so glad they made it this far.

Guppy Baby Update

I was sure all of the fry were dead yesterday, because I hadn't seem them all day long.

Finally, shortly after DH got home, I saw one tiny fish swimming around, then this morning I saw all 3 of them, right after I turned on the lights.

They are pretty good hiders, which is great.

Captain Jack the Betta loves to chase them, and has un unnatural attraction to the breeder grass since one of them was hiding in it yesterday!

I was so excited when I saw the 3 of them together this morning!

New Guppy Babies

I woke up this morning, and found all of the fish awake and swimming around.

I knew something was up, since they are normally not moving when I get up, so I took a look around, and sure enough I saw a baby guppy.

I was able to catch one, and put it, in a breeder tank, but the other ones were too fast for me!

I'm pretty sure there are at least three, but I hope there are more.

These are Blue Girl's babies - she's my beautiful female with a blue tail, and I can't wait to see what the fry look like when they grow up.

Since we haven't even had her for a week, we aren't sure what the dad looks like either.

I did catch Blue Girl this morning, and I put her into the top of the breeder tank, in case she wasn't done giving birth, but she hasn't had anymore yet.

A couple of hours after I put the baby in there, I went to check on it for the 50th time and the baby was gone.

I really hope he swam through the side, and escaped into the aquarium, instead of swimming up into the compartment with Blue Girl and letting her eat him.

I'm crushing up flake food, and I also boiled an egg, and mixed a little of the yolk with water to feed the fry.

One of the fry was hiding in the breeder grass at the top of the tank, but when I went to put the yolk and food there for him he disappeared. Hopefully he is still in the grass, and safe.

The fry do blend in with the gravel, so it's really hard for me to find them, hopefully the other fish in the tank will have a hard time finding them as wsell.

New Years Update

Hi! How are you?

I'm doing great!

I hope you had a fabulous new years, and that you have a fabulous new year, in which all of your dreams come true.

We have a few new additions to the household - we got an aquarium over the holidays.

We currently have 3 female guppies, one male guppy, and a beautiful blue male betta.

I'm going to try to take pictures today, so hopefully they will be up soon.