Stowaway Fry In My Fishless Cycle

[Birdie]

I'm on day 24 of a supposedly fishless cycle :sigh: and today I realised my tank had had a massive pH crash :more sighing: . Whilst doing a biiig water change what do I see? Five fry They must have been stowaways ( as eggs??) on a plant - either bought from the lfs or purloined from my other tank.

Thing is there really aren't any likely candidates from my tank - the only remote possibilities would be the Celebes rainbows, and I didn't think they would produce eggs that would actually hatch (And certainly not in an environment where the ammonia was raised to 4 on a daily basis, and the nitrites were commonly 5 ). And if they are from the lfs, then I really have no clue what they are . About ten days ago I did see something wiggling about in the water, but just put it down to either very poor eyesight and a vivid imagination or some kind of insect larvae accompanying the plants ( after all they seemed to have a plentiful supply of snails ) . But no, these are very definitely fry - with rather pretty iridescent eyes.

More puzzling to me than their parentage though is how on earth they have survived me adding 6mls a day of 9.5% ammonia to their water, with the hideous levels of ammonia and nitrite that that entails. Oh, and I don't suppose the off-the-scale nitrates were much of a laugh either. Then they survived a sudden pH crash ( to below 6.6 from 7.2) and then an even more sudden rise back up again. And obviously, being unaware of their presence I didn't feed them either.

Poor things- I don't have a suitable fry tank ( and wouldn't be able to get one on a sunday night either) and if I put them into my community tank or in with my betta I think they would be snacks by morning ( they are very titchy still - rather less than 1cm including tail) . Still, I guess they've survived this long Maybe I could get some sort of contraption to go inside the 20g community......

 

[WILDER]

You could put them in a plastic breeder container, but you would have to climatise them to water temp and ph.

 

[Birdie]

Hmm - just realised that perhaps the breeder container isn't such a good idea after all as I am going away on holiday in 5 days time, and although my ex-fish-keeping neighbour will feed my other fish once or twice I don't feel I can ask him to feed a bunch of fry in a breeding trap several times a day Up until now they've been surviving by eating umm don't know what - grazing on plants, presumably? Which they wouldn't have access to in a breeding trap thing. I can't imagine that they eat much of anything really. Even if they consumed many times their own bodyweight per day that would still be a very, very small amount but I'm sure they can't go without for a week . Perhaps their best chance lies in just staying where they are.

I'm very much hoping that my cycle will finish in the next 24-48 hours and that I will be able to add some fish before I leave, and the Mystery Fry will just have to take their chances hanging out in the (plentiful) hornwort. If the cycle doesn't finish before I have to leave, my plan is to get some kind of dispenser to chug out some food every so often, to hopefully keep at least a bunch of the bacteria going until my return. I don't know if that will even work - but can't think of anything else to do, really.

If anyone has any other suggestions, I'm all ears ( or should that be eyes ?)

 

[fishboy619]

maybe try putting a few crushed flakes in?

 

[cheesy feet]

I'm on day 24 of a supposedly fishless cycle :sigh: and today I realised my tank had had a massive pH crash :more sighing: . Whilst doing a biiig water change what do I see? Five fry They must have been stowaways ( as eggs??) on a plant - either bought from the lfs or purloined from my other tank.

Thing is there really aren't any likely candidates from my tank - the only remote possibilities would be the Celebes rainbows, and I didn't think they would produce eggs that would actually hatch (And certainly not in an environment where the ammonia was raised to 4 on a daily basis, and the nitrites were commonly 5 ). And if they are from the lfs, then I really have no clue what they are . About ten days ago I did see something wiggling about in the water, but just put it down to either very poor eyesight and a vivid imagination or some kind of insect larvae accompanying the plants ( after all they seemed to have a plentiful supply of snails ) . But no, these are very definitely fry - with rather pretty iridescent eyes.

More puzzling to me than their parentage though is how on earth they have survived me adding 6mls a day of 9.5% ammonia to their water, with the hideous levels of ammonia and nitrite that that entails. Oh, and I don't suppose the off-the-scale nitrates were much of a laugh either. Then they survived a sudden pH crash ( to below 6.6 from 7.2) and then an even more sudden rise back up again. And obviously, being unaware of their presence I didn't feed them either.

Poor things- I don't have a suitable fry tank ( and wouldn't be able to get one on a sunday night either) and if I put them into my community tank or in with my betta I think they would be snacks by morning ( they are very titchy still - rather less than 1cm including tail) . Still, I guess they've survived this long Maybe I could get some sort of contraption to go inside the 20g community......

When i was a newbie i also added the fish straight away,funny thing is i never had a death.Then again they were plecos,silver dollars and pangasius sharks catfishes so they were all pretty hardy...

 

[tmack]

I guess it just goes to show how life can sometimes still go on, even under really adverse conditions, Sometimes fish are a lot hardier than we think they are. If the eggs developed under those conditions, then it would seem the fry have adjusted to them.

 

[DiscusAngel]

leave them in the tank that they have survived in. they will live of everything else. and also keep everyting alive.

 

[Bozza]

I agree with discus. They have survived there without you knowing, and i'm sure they will keep surviving somehow while your away. Keep us updated.