OMG I'm a Dad!!!

[Jon in SW Ohio]

Before you ask, no it's not from one of my weekend drinking or gambling jaunts

After months of complaining about how none of my fish ever breed and I never see any eggs to the point that I was considering playing some Barry White in the fish room, I got a huge shock today. I fed my Killifish a couple dozen guppies a couple weeks ago, and noticed they didn't eat a couple of them. I figured they just thinned out the herd and the fast and smart guppies survived. Well today, I noticed instead of 2 or 3 guppies, I had closer to 10 and some were way too big! On closer look, sure enough, they are baby Fundulopanchax sjoestedti!!

Here's one with one of the male guppies:

Some others:

And here's Papa resting after a large meal of bloodworms:

To see more pics of Mom and Dad, look here:
http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1750&highlight=fundulopanchax

Jon

 

[gore42]

Awesome Jon Your plants look really healthy, btw. What kind of light do they get?

- Matt

 

[Heather]

Congratulations on the new arrivals!

 

[Jon in SW Ohio]

Awesome Jon Your plants look really healthy, btw. What kind of light do they get?

- Matt

I confess, they're plastic. The only aquatic plant I can seem to grow is hair algae and duckweed

Jon

 

[Heather]

I confess, they're plastic. The only aquatic plant I can seem to grow is hair algae and duckweed

Jon

and here we were under the impression you were this great grower...oke:

 

[Jon in SW Ohio]

and here we were under the impression you were this great grower...oke:

Who? Me?
I am but a simple fish raising coral junkie

Jon

 

[PHRAG]

Congratulations! They have your lips.


:evil:

 

[L I Jane]

Wowee Jon--very good.I've missed the updates on your coral aquarium with the neat fish (dragon something?? )

 

[smartie2000]

Geeez I actually thought you had a human baby.
Nice fish fry!

 

[Jon in SW Ohio]

:rollhappy: I figured the title would at least get everyone from AIM to read the post

Jane you're right! I've been keeping a blog of sorts on one of the coral forums, I'll have to copy it over to here. I'm happy to say the Mandarin Dragonet is still alive and well, but he now lives in my 20g prop tank instead of the display tank. I run the prop tank "dirty" (natural filtration by plants and live rock) and it's full of macroalgaes so there is live food galore for him. I think it makes both our lives much easier. I'm still waiting for the Royal Gramma to jump out of the tank so I can put something a little more extravagant and gentler in there. But like they say, the good ones die young...so I'll be stuck with him for a long time...

Jon

 

[Park Bear]

Jon, you will need to remove the fry because they will eat their siblings and mom and dad might also might still eat them. I'm sure the eggs were laid in the gravel, by the hundreds. If you miss a couple of feedings they just, the parents, just might get hungry and pick a few off.

 

[NYEric]

I was just about to say the same thing. I love children, a little barbeque sauce and 1 hour in the oven...

 

[dave b]

Way to go Jon. Very cool looking parents.

Your Mandarin should do well in the "dirty" refugium tank. They will have much more food with the presence of the algae and especially the copepods that thrive in the refugiums.

 

[Jon in SW Ohio]

Well it hasn't even been a full month yet, and these guys are HUGE!
The males now measure about 3 inches long and the females around 2 inches long. The males are even taking on their adult coloration already!

I'm still debating what to do with them. They still live with their parents and I feed the tank twice a day to keep everyone full and less active. I am really gonna need more tanks very soon...

Here they are today:

Jon

 

[Heather]

Oh. No.


Not more tanks?

 

[Park Bear]

that is how it works....for killies on the average you need about 5 tanks per species to accommodate the different sizes of the fry

 

[Ron-NY]

:rollhappy: cute title!!

I have a cute guppy story...when I was in 5th grade I had a 5 gal tank with a few guppies. I lost interest in it but would remember to throw some food in once and awhile. Algae covered the glass so I couldn't see in. I am not sure how long it was before I decided to clean the tank but after I did I sold 100 guppies to the local pet shop prolific little buggers