MOMMA MIA

This morning after completing my water changes on my 55 gallon juvenile community and my 40 gallon "for sale" tank I noticed a female holding. Of course I noticed her holding after I had everything back in place and cleaned up. I would normally have left her until the next water change but I'm planning on getting rid of these fish this week as I'm running out of room.

I was lucky and caught her without too much fuss. I didn't remove anything from the tank, but when I had her in the net she spit 4 eggs out. I stripped her of the rest and placed them in my 20 gallon grow out in a tumbler. I took a photo so I could accurately count the eggs. There are 31 but I can already see that one is not fertilized. My success rate with my tumbler has been really good. After removing any that aren't fertilized I have continually succeeded in raising 100% of the fry.

There are 3 holding moms in my brooding tanks. All are very close to spitting. One mom actually let 4 fry escape her mouth. I think she is having trouble containing her brood. I'm sure she will be spitting in a day or two. The other two moms will be also spitting this week so I should have a ton of new fry. I keep saying I will have to let them spit in their community tank but I just haven't been able to let that happen yet. I feel so bad for the babies trying to survive like that.

One of these days I'm going have to or get more tanks!