Aquarium Update
So we're supposed to have baby snails by now, and the weird part is that we do, but they aren't mystery snails; they're zebra snails. And okay, we did get a couple of adult zebra snails, but if they laid any eggs anywhere we never saw them; they're hatching (well, appearing, so I assume hatching) in the same tank we put the mystery snail eggs in; and the mystery snail egg sack (which I did open a bit at one point when it seemed likely that they would be trying to hatch but might be having difficulties breaking out) did have a tiny, eenie weenie mystery snail shell in it. So those definitely are mystery snail eggs (we also hadn't yet gotten the zebras when the egg sack was laid), and we do have snail babies--but they're completely the wrong species. The hell?
It's a mystery snail snail mystery, lol.
In other aquarium news, we are now up to eight tanks (although one is being used for filtering and doesn't have anything growing in it and probably doesn't count, so only seven, really, as I'm also not counting the fish bowl which is currently dry). One with (getting large) goldfish, including Baby Fish (the sole survivor of the goldfish spawn this spring; he swam up a siphon bridge into the plant tank where he lived off plants and algae until he was big enough to be noticed; he's now back in with Mummy Fish and Daddy Fish and a few others); one (our second biggest tank) with an impressive mix of neons, mollies, plecos (sort of catfish things), Gouramis (in blue, pearl, gold, and I think another kind, I don't even remember for sure now), green and tiger barbs, um... silver-tipped tetras, red miners, danios, and a weather loach. And a very small frog which came along with some plants by accident somewhere along the line, lol. I'm probably missing some in there, too; that is a very colourful tank. Also it has plants. Lots of plants.
The third tank in the dining room (These ones are all lined up against the wall next to my desk; from my desk I can see six tanks!!) has a couple different kinds of African Cichlids: Jewelled Cichlids (which are little orange fish about the size of a goldfish, although much flatter, with bright silvery blue dots), and a handful of different kinds we call the Power Rangers (a red one, an orange one, a yellow one, a blue one, a white one, and a black-and-white striped one with yellow--shut up, yes, I know the colours aren't quite right). I'll come back to that tank in a minute because COOL NEWS but we also have a great big giant tank in the living room that was supposed to be beautifully landscaped with plants and with just some very tiny fish like neons; but which instead came with a great big Oscar (seriously, he's about eight inches long) and a great big pleco (even bigger) because the fish hadn't been sold by the time we went to pick up the tank. So beside it is another planted tank (the Oscar, who is a real character who likes to watch TV over our shoulders and who will eat mealworms out of your fingers and who will flop around the tank and throw a tantrum if he gets too hungry or is feeling ignored, also apparently likes uprooting plants so his tank is pretty bare but he needs the space for swimming in anyways). And that planted tank has a few small fish in it and some snails and a couple shrimp and also another small frog, because why not. They are neat.
Also the snail tank is now devoid of all non-gastropod life-forms, because we had had a betta in there with another pleco (they eat algae off the glass and plants so we have them in most of the tanks), and I think one or two other little fish the betta seemed okay with, but then the poor little guy came down with a fungal infection and, despite our isolating him in another little tank (well, a fish bowl) and dosing him with medication for it, died. So it should be scrubbed down well before anything else goes into it, but we can't just yet because it also has baby snails in there, and some of them are just too incredibly tiny to fish out; we'd squash them if we tried.
But in a while, when the snails are larger and can be moved (we've already moved a few of the bigger ones out into another tank where they're the biggest things in there for now), it will become our grow-out tank, because we will need some more space for, ta-dah, all our cichlid babies!! :D Yay we have baby fish again!!! :D
Cichlids pair for life and are mouth-breeders, which means that once the eggs are laid and fertilized, the mum scoops them all up into her mouth and carries them around for about three weeks, until they hatch. After that she will let them out (which lets her eat herself, which she won't have done for about 21 days) but both her and Daddy will guard the little guys, keeping them in a group by sucking up stragglers and spitting them back out where they belong, and aggressively chasing off any other fish that comes too close. They'll gather them back up again completely if they feel the need.
Well, the guy we got the cichlids from about a month or so ago did say he thought he might have a breeding pair in there with a mouthful of eggs, but we couldn't spot them, so we kind of forgot about that until yesterday afternoon. Know how I said a bunch of tanks were right by my desk? Well, the cichlid tank is the closest one to me, and Mummy and Daddy Cichlid's lovely little nest is right down my end of the tank. I was just on my computer yesterday when something caught my eye: Two cichlids were right down my end, just sort of hanging around, and by them--at first I thought they'd stirred up a bunch of debris off the bottom, then for a moment I thought the little mosquito-larvae-sized things were some kind of worms, but then I looked closer--"Baby fish! We're full of baby fish!" :DDD
Now, if we just leave the babies in with Mum and Dad and let nature take it's course, the odds of more than one or two surviving are really super low, and we don't want that (we love our babies! Yay more babies!). But getting Mum and Dad out when they're holding the babies is tough; they head into their little cave and if we pull their lovely little home apart (they have very carefully built up a wall of sand around the entrance to make it as small as possible) they may not spawn again, even assuming we could catch those two specific fish in a tank of like twenty. And even if we could and put them into their own tank, sooner or later the mum and dad would stop protecting, and start eating the babies. Nuh-uh.
So we followed YouTube advice and siphoned up a bunch of the babies (think we got a little over half of them), moving them into a brand-new tank in the kitchen, next to the snails (we are running out of flat surfaces, lol), and leaving enough with Mum and Dad for them to practise their parenting skills on. But even if all the babies in the main cichlid tank get gobbled up (and we hope they don't), we've still got another twenty or thirty in the other tank by themselves (well, except for some extremely tiny baby snails that aren't going to eat them and which will help keep their tank clean, which is important anyways but is vital for babies).
So there you go! Baby snails (but zebra snails, not mystery snails, weird), and baby fish! Eee, I'm all excited.
Pics! Behind a cut because they are huge!
Lots of fish tanks and aquarium tank (plus my new desk!). Stands still to be finished but currently functioning while we finalize layout. Like my skulls? (please ignore all the fish stuff on the floor and against the wall, sheesh):
Oscar! For scale, that is Karl's head in the background:
Oscar's tank with the planted one beside it:
This is the cichlid tank. Daddy is to the far right, in front of the skull:
Babies!! This is the main tank; the little tiny white things are the babies. The little cave on the left under the rock is home, although they go into the skull as well. Mum on the left; Dad to the right (you can really see his "jewels" here):
More babies! This is a slightly better view of baby fish in the new fry tank:
So there you go! Fish babies, yay!
This entry was originally posted at http://kryss-labryn.dreamwidth.org/100754.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
It's a mystery snail snail mystery, lol.
In other aquarium news, we are now up to eight tanks (although one is being used for filtering and doesn't have anything growing in it and probably doesn't count, so only seven, really, as I'm also not counting the fish bowl which is currently dry). One with (getting large) goldfish, including Baby Fish (the sole survivor of the goldfish spawn this spring; he swam up a siphon bridge into the plant tank where he lived off plants and algae until he was big enough to be noticed; he's now back in with Mummy Fish and Daddy Fish and a few others); one (our second biggest tank) with an impressive mix of neons, mollies, plecos (sort of catfish things), Gouramis (in blue, pearl, gold, and I think another kind, I don't even remember for sure now), green and tiger barbs, um... silver-tipped tetras, red miners, danios, and a weather loach. And a very small frog which came along with some plants by accident somewhere along the line, lol. I'm probably missing some in there, too; that is a very colourful tank. Also it has plants. Lots of plants.
The third tank in the dining room (These ones are all lined up against the wall next to my desk; from my desk I can see six tanks!!) has a couple different kinds of African Cichlids: Jewelled Cichlids (which are little orange fish about the size of a goldfish, although much flatter, with bright silvery blue dots), and a handful of different kinds we call the Power Rangers (a red one, an orange one, a yellow one, a blue one, a white one, and a black-and-white striped one with yellow--shut up, yes, I know the colours aren't quite right). I'll come back to that tank in a minute because COOL NEWS but we also have a great big giant tank in the living room that was supposed to be beautifully landscaped with plants and with just some very tiny fish like neons; but which instead came with a great big Oscar (seriously, he's about eight inches long) and a great big pleco (even bigger) because the fish hadn't been sold by the time we went to pick up the tank. So beside it is another planted tank (the Oscar, who is a real character who likes to watch TV over our shoulders and who will eat mealworms out of your fingers and who will flop around the tank and throw a tantrum if he gets too hungry or is feeling ignored, also apparently likes uprooting plants so his tank is pretty bare but he needs the space for swimming in anyways). And that planted tank has a few small fish in it and some snails and a couple shrimp and also another small frog, because why not. They are neat.
Also the snail tank is now devoid of all non-gastropod life-forms, because we had had a betta in there with another pleco (they eat algae off the glass and plants so we have them in most of the tanks), and I think one or two other little fish the betta seemed okay with, but then the poor little guy came down with a fungal infection and, despite our isolating him in another little tank (well, a fish bowl) and dosing him with medication for it, died. So it should be scrubbed down well before anything else goes into it, but we can't just yet because it also has baby snails in there, and some of them are just too incredibly tiny to fish out; we'd squash them if we tried.
But in a while, when the snails are larger and can be moved (we've already moved a few of the bigger ones out into another tank where they're the biggest things in there for now), it will become our grow-out tank, because we will need some more space for, ta-dah, all our cichlid babies!! :D Yay we have baby fish again!!! :D
Cichlids pair for life and are mouth-breeders, which means that once the eggs are laid and fertilized, the mum scoops them all up into her mouth and carries them around for about three weeks, until they hatch. After that she will let them out (which lets her eat herself, which she won't have done for about 21 days) but both her and Daddy will guard the little guys, keeping them in a group by sucking up stragglers and spitting them back out where they belong, and aggressively chasing off any other fish that comes too close. They'll gather them back up again completely if they feel the need.
Well, the guy we got the cichlids from about a month or so ago did say he thought he might have a breeding pair in there with a mouthful of eggs, but we couldn't spot them, so we kind of forgot about that until yesterday afternoon. Know how I said a bunch of tanks were right by my desk? Well, the cichlid tank is the closest one to me, and Mummy and Daddy Cichlid's lovely little nest is right down my end of the tank. I was just on my computer yesterday when something caught my eye: Two cichlids were right down my end, just sort of hanging around, and by them--at first I thought they'd stirred up a bunch of debris off the bottom, then for a moment I thought the little mosquito-larvae-sized things were some kind of worms, but then I looked closer--"Baby fish! We're full of baby fish!" :DDD
Now, if we just leave the babies in with Mum and Dad and let nature take it's course, the odds of more than one or two surviving are really super low, and we don't want that (we love our babies! Yay more babies!). But getting Mum and Dad out when they're holding the babies is tough; they head into their little cave and if we pull their lovely little home apart (they have very carefully built up a wall of sand around the entrance to make it as small as possible) they may not spawn again, even assuming we could catch those two specific fish in a tank of like twenty. And even if we could and put them into their own tank, sooner or later the mum and dad would stop protecting, and start eating the babies. Nuh-uh.
So we followed YouTube advice and siphoned up a bunch of the babies (think we got a little over half of them), moving them into a brand-new tank in the kitchen, next to the snails (we are running out of flat surfaces, lol), and leaving enough with Mum and Dad for them to practise their parenting skills on. But even if all the babies in the main cichlid tank get gobbled up (and we hope they don't), we've still got another twenty or thirty in the other tank by themselves (well, except for some extremely tiny baby snails that aren't going to eat them and which will help keep their tank clean, which is important anyways but is vital for babies).
So there you go! Baby snails (but zebra snails, not mystery snails, weird), and baby fish! Eee, I'm all excited.
Pics! Behind a cut because they are huge!
Lots of fish tanks and aquarium tank (plus my new desk!). Stands still to be finished but currently functioning while we finalize layout. Like my skulls? (please ignore all the fish stuff on the floor and against the wall, sheesh):
Oscar! For scale, that is Karl's head in the background:
Oscar's tank with the planted one beside it:
This is the cichlid tank. Daddy is to the far right, in front of the skull:
Babies!! This is the main tank; the little tiny white things are the babies. The little cave on the left under the rock is home, although they go into the skull as well. Mum on the left; Dad to the right (you can really see his "jewels" here):
More babies! This is a slightly better view of baby fish in the new fry tank:
So there you go! Fish babies, yay!
This entry was originally posted at http://kryss-labryn.dreamwidth.org/100754.html. Please comment there using OpenID.