Can't Figure Out Where This Baby Fish Came From

[mtader]

About a month ago I had 3 fish in my tank. one Neon Tetra, one Pink Gourami, and one Dwarf Gourami. I noticed one day that there was a very small baby fish that was orange and had a black tail. It was very shy and I had no idea where it came from. After a few days it seemed to have disappeared and I thought maybe one of the bigger fish ate it. However that seems to not be the case as it as reappeared one month later and it is bigger and swimming around the tank very actively (It is really good at hiding!) It looks to be an orange platy maybe. However the last time I had one of those was about a year ago which is there really weird part. Does anyone know where the fish may have come from? I attached pictures of it.

 

[StevenF]

Did you recently purchase any fish and add them to your aquarium?  Fish eggs and fry are very small an easy to miss.  I had one shortly after setting up my tank but I only saw him once.  And that was a couple of years ago.

 

[NickAu]

 
Did you recently purchase any fish and add them to your aquarium?

Or Plants and that little platy could have been hiding for the last few weeks and now feels confident enough to come out.
 
Not so long ago a member here got some sort of cat fish I think as a hitch hiker when they got some plants. From memory it was worth the 40 or 50 bucks.

 

[DrRob]

I've had platy hitchikers before, some I was totally clueless about the transfer of, but they show up mainly on plants, or bagged with other fish by accident.

 

[mtader]

Well I have all artificial plants and I got them all years ago so I don't think that's where it came from. But I did get the neon tetra a few month ago so maybe that's where it came from. How long do fish remain very small? Because I was reading that eggs hatch within a few days and I didn't see the baby fish for a few months after I got the neon tetra so is it possible I didn't see it because of how small it was? Thanks.

 

[guppiegirlie]

I can almost guarantee that's a baby platy, I have some in my tank at the min!

Depending on your tank size basically IME depends on how quick they grow but they do grow pretty quickly given enough space to do so.

It could of stowed away when you got your neons, my dad had an incident of a stow away Molly in with his red eye tetras and nobody noticed till he let the out of the bag!

Baby platy are excellent hiders, mine hid out in the gravel and in the thick of the plants til they were big enough to mix with the others. I have 7 in my tank ATM and all of those are surviving fry.
Also platys are live barers so unless you've had them in your tank recently it's almost certainly stowed away!