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Hi all.
I hope everyone and their fish are well. I'll try and get on a little more from now on, now homelife has settled down a bit and I'm well again. I thought I would write a quick diary on my latest two spawns, seeing as the fry from my other two are now grown up and living their lives in their respective adult tanks or have been sold.
1)The first pair of fish that spawned last Tuesday are my mustard gas dragon HMPK boy, Harley, and my iridescent gold doubletail HMPK girl, Goldilocks. They spawned quite quickly, with no fin damage to either fish. They’re growing really well and are 5 days old now, there's roughly 50 of them although it’s impossible to properly count at the moment, there could be more lol. Anyone care to give me a clue as to the colours I could expect from these fry? The parents are such lovely colours themselves, I’m sure the fry will be little stunners.
2)The second couple that spawned are a pair of dragon doubletail halfmoons, Zio and Azzurra. I felt it safe to breed them as they’re both quite long bodied and fit and healthy with no obvious deformities. They took about four days to get going and finally started being responsive to each other last Thursday lunchtime after I introduced a second female to stir things up (I removed the new female once Azzurra started flaring at Zio). I had to go and do the school run so I left them to it once they started wrapping, and I went to check on them around 3:30pm Zio’s belly was huge, and he was eating eggs as they fell from Azzurra, even nipping at her egg tube (yuck!). So I let them wrap several times more and each time he ate the eggs, even snapping them out of the nest when Azzurra tried to save them from him. So after the last wrap I kept Zio away with the end of a net to give Azzurra a chance to collect the eggs and put them in the nest. Then I removed Zio and let Azzurra take over the nest duties as she seemed willing to care for the eggs. I couldn’t see very many in the nest. Azzurra was very tired and beaten up, and kept resting in the plants and wandering the tank, although she did sit under the nest and mouth the eggs from time to time. When the fry started hatching she seemed very tired and weak, and made little attempt to replace the falling wriggling eggs, eventually eating half of them (some were clearly unfertile though). I removed Azzurra, my little star who did a good job of keeping the eggs alive that long, then I collected the eggs and put what remained of the nest in a floating breeding trap and only three fry fully hatched. The eggs that were wriggling eventually stopped and died, which was quite sad. There were only about 10 altogether, including the ones that hatched. So I put the three surviving fry in a 9L tank with a tiny sponge filter, mini heater and live plants and water from the breeding tank. As of ten minutes ago, two of the fry are alive and seemingly well, they are now free swimming and eating banana worms and exploring their little home. I haven’t seen all three fry together at the same time, only two, so I’m not sure if a third is still alive. I suppose I’ll have to wait until they’re a bit bigger and easier to spot! I really really hope these poor little guys stay strong and keep going!
Hope you like the pics anyway, I'll try and take weekly or bi-weekly pics to update on the fry's progress, right now my camera is still broken and won’t focus on anything as small as fry right now.
Jess x
I hope everyone and their fish are well. I'll try and get on a little more from now on, now homelife has settled down a bit and I'm well again. I thought I would write a quick diary on my latest two spawns, seeing as the fry from my other two are now grown up and living their lives in their respective adult tanks or have been sold.
1)The first pair of fish that spawned last Tuesday are my mustard gas dragon HMPK boy, Harley, and my iridescent gold doubletail HMPK girl, Goldilocks. They spawned quite quickly, with no fin damage to either fish. They’re growing really well and are 5 days old now, there's roughly 50 of them although it’s impossible to properly count at the moment, there could be more lol. Anyone care to give me a clue as to the colours I could expect from these fry? The parents are such lovely colours themselves, I’m sure the fry will be little stunners.
2)The second couple that spawned are a pair of dragon doubletail halfmoons, Zio and Azzurra. I felt it safe to breed them as they’re both quite long bodied and fit and healthy with no obvious deformities. They took about four days to get going and finally started being responsive to each other last Thursday lunchtime after I introduced a second female to stir things up (I removed the new female once Azzurra started flaring at Zio). I had to go and do the school run so I left them to it once they started wrapping, and I went to check on them around 3:30pm Zio’s belly was huge, and he was eating eggs as they fell from Azzurra, even nipping at her egg tube (yuck!). So I let them wrap several times more and each time he ate the eggs, even snapping them out of the nest when Azzurra tried to save them from him. So after the last wrap I kept Zio away with the end of a net to give Azzurra a chance to collect the eggs and put them in the nest. Then I removed Zio and let Azzurra take over the nest duties as she seemed willing to care for the eggs. I couldn’t see very many in the nest. Azzurra was very tired and beaten up, and kept resting in the plants and wandering the tank, although she did sit under the nest and mouth the eggs from time to time. When the fry started hatching she seemed very tired and weak, and made little attempt to replace the falling wriggling eggs, eventually eating half of them (some were clearly unfertile though). I removed Azzurra, my little star who did a good job of keeping the eggs alive that long, then I collected the eggs and put what remained of the nest in a floating breeding trap and only three fry fully hatched. The eggs that were wriggling eventually stopped and died, which was quite sad. There were only about 10 altogether, including the ones that hatched. So I put the three surviving fry in a 9L tank with a tiny sponge filter, mini heater and live plants and water from the breeding tank. As of ten minutes ago, two of the fry are alive and seemingly well, they are now free swimming and eating banana worms and exploring their little home. I haven’t seen all three fry together at the same time, only two, so I’m not sure if a third is still alive. I suppose I’ll have to wait until they’re a bit bigger and easier to spot! I really really hope these poor little guys stay strong and keep going!
Hope you like the pics anyway, I'll try and take weekly or bi-weekly pics to update on the fry's progress, right now my camera is still broken and won’t focus on anything as small as fry right now.
Jess x
