What Are These Fry And My New Tank

thedragonslayer

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I set up my 30 gallon tank with new black top gravel, some select rocks and a nice heavy old root structure I have had for years.  I last had fish in 1979 and got started when I was 7 in 1967. I started with guppies and by 1979 had goldfish and was exploring the idea of different tropical fish, but ended up moving away from home and found I was too busy to have fish. I got a 30 gallon tank for free a few years ago and a 22 gallon for free a few months ago and when I saw an ad for a tank with baby fish, I took the chance. The owner had no idea what the baby fish were, the mother had died and all she was left with was a 10 gallon tank filled with fry.  Those fry are now approaching 5/8 of an inch and I have had them for 11 days now. I think some are 2 + weeks old and the smallest are 12 days old. I counted 176 of them as I returned them to their tank when I brought them home. Most if not all of them have survived and I have spent a journey on the internet researching different fish to see what these fry are from. I have narrowed it down to Barbs through comparing physical features of the fry, such as a lack of an adipose fin, the shape of the tail and the shape of the dorsal fin. They seem very hardy, the tank they were in, 10 gallons, was very smelly and dirty when I got it, I kept most of the water when I restored them to their tank and have been doing regular water changes and started exchanging the water between their tank and the 30 gallon tank. Yesterday I finished setting up the 30 in its permanent location, with plants, wood and rocks. It has a power filter that has been going for 11 days now and a bubbler. How long do I need to wait to add a few of the largest fry? It will be nice to see fish in the large tank. Some of the largest fry are getting dark edges to their dorsal fins and tail fins and a hint of dark at the base of the tail body. I am hoping they are rosy barbs or cherry barbs.
 

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They look like corydora fry to me. I may be wrong
 
I am inclined to go with some type of carp. You didn't mention if the tank the fish came from was a cold water tank or a heated tank, this will help a lot on narrowing down the species, as will if your in a cool or hot part of the USA.
 
I have no idea what they are haha it does look a bit like a cory though :) They are super cute!
 
Hello, I am returning, more to update then anything else. I ended up joining at least 5 different fish forums in an attempt to find out what the fry were that I had got off of Craigslist. It was a 10 gallon tank, a sponge filter, filthy gravel, no plants, just plastic ones, no light, no heater even, but 176 baby fish. The owner was moving that day, she said the mother fish had died and did not know what the fish was. I deduced that it was possibly a live bearer and that was a narrow choice of fish to choose from. I figured that they were guppies and was excited to discover what colors I could get.  I transferred them all to the 30 gallon tank after it had cycled for 2 weeks and they seemed to do fine, but still I did not know what they were and everyone started saying "Dude, you've got goldfish" .... NO, I could not have gold fish, that needed two to make it happen. I tried to locate the woman I got the tank from, No luck, she did not return her email and her number had changed with no forwarding.   I had a few say they could be barbs, but their fins did not conform. So I joined a goldfish forum and sure enough, they said I had goldfish,  Geeeeeez..... 176 baby goldfish with no history. That was in June that I got those baby goldfish, I have had a 90 gallon pond outside going  since spring of 2009, no fish, just a recirculating pond. I put some plants in it and got it cycled by adding the biggest fry from the tank. I also set up a 90 gallon steel stock tank and put some fry in there. Hardy as goldfish are, they took and I just kept transfering the fish outdoors. I eventually put them all in the 90 gallon preformed pond and once a month I do a 50% water change using the pump/filter by opening one of the valves into a water hose and use that on my potted trees. I run water into the pond using an RV inline water filter.  There were always tiny fry and those either died or got eaten and now as of the end of February I have at least 40 as of last count when I did a 90% water change after a shovel full of dirt got knocked into the pond and generated an algae bloom. I pulled all the plants and caught all the fish. The largest is around 3 3/4 inches and nearly all gold.   90 gallons is still too small and I have been searching for and planning on making their situation large. last Saturday I got a 168 gallon preformed pond from a neighbor in exchange for doing some yard work for him. I installed it on Sunday.  In September, though, I adopted 12 guppy; 5 obviously pregnant females and 7 males.   I set up my 30 gallon tank and got it cycled with elodea plants from the pond and the power filter, put the males in the tank and lost just one. Put the females in a 20 gallon tank and two were already looking poor and lost them. But the remaining three females have had 74 babies that have survived. It looks like they will be soon dropping another brood.  I have a local feed/pet store that may take some of the goldfish off of me and the male guppies.  I am thinking of setting up a fish weir on the spillway of the 168 gallon pond and putting many of the guppy in there and keep the gold fish in the lower pond.  The filter is in the lower pond and runs the spitting frog and has a one inch line with a Y valve, I am running two lines to the big pond, one is an upper spout that runs into the pond at its upper end and another that bubbles up for the dogs to drink from. I can run a max of 400 gallons per hour through the pond system.
 

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