An Improbability Fish

[Vale!]

I was delighted ; now I'm bemused. Flummoxed.  Earlier I'd completed my feeding round and was enjoying an extra tour of the tanks when something caught my eye. I'd better offer a bit of backstory I think...




A while ago, as posted in Another Place, I thought I'd try to see if two Moina cultures would perform differently from each other if one had blackworms in it. I set them up as identically as I could : the LED lighting is bluer in one but everything else is pretty much the same.  It was exactly a month ago that each started with 10 individuals and it was while I was looking at them earlier that I wondered whether or not it was time to report back on progress.  Pic #1 shows what I was looking at : I think you can see the difference (though it's not a perfect test by any means because some snails got in the right-hand tank, of course, and anyway I have to feed the worms)!


I made a closer inspection of the right-hand tank. The first thing I saw, what had delighted me, was an adult Moina moulting - never seen that before. Somewhat creepily, one of the 'paddles' of the cast-off exoskeleton carried on twitching for quite a few seconds as it sank down to the tank floor.  I was congratulating myself for being there at the right time when I saw a fish. That's what's flummoxed me.  It's there (honest Guv) in both Pic #2 and Pic #3. It's only four or five millimetres long in total and that's fine : well done it! The point is that it shouldn't be there at all!


Before setting up, the tanks were scrubbed and sterilised. The filters (which had been looking after previous invertebrate residents) had their sponges really well squeezed out several times. I gathered 'spent' leaf-litter from various fishtanks, washed them all together and then divided them between the two tanks. I refilled with fresh water made from RO/DI* laced with JBL Aquadur to a conductivity of around 400uS (average conductivity across the tanks from where I sourced the leaves is about 45, so nearly a tenth of the ionic strength of Moina water) and then plonked the somewhat dazed animals in.


When I feed I use a dedicated turkey baster, so could not have transferred anything that way from a tank with fish. It's impossible to imagine how it might have come from any of the ingredients that make up the feed.  It must have come from a tank populated with fish ; but what is it?


It's very young but has no egg sac left. It can't be the son or daughter of a livebearer because after a month it should be much bigger. So it must have hatched from an egg. And the egg must have been attached to one of the leaves that I'd gathered from those particular tanks so ... it must surely be one of: Liquorice Gourami (of some description) ; Sparkling Gourami ; False Eight-Banded Barb ; Harlequin Rasbora ; or Spotted Blue Eye. I'm discounting Phoenix Rasbora on account of the size.


My bet is that it's a Liquorice Gourami : in my usual ham-fisted way I might well have destroyed a nest (yet again!) in the act of pulling out the leaves.  Whatever it is, though, it's done really well to hatch at all given the parameter disparity between the water it must have come from and the water it's in now.  It's all a bit of a puzzle!










* Reverse Osmosis / Deionised

[Gingerlove05]

Wow hope he does well, theres plenty of food there for him thats for sure lol

[PJN]

My sparkling gourami fry looked very similar. It's possible it could be that, or a gourami of sorts.

[Sarah]

Will be interesting to know what it actually turns out to be. As we all know nature usually prevails.
Not quite as interesting but about four months ago I did a full clean out of my quarantine tank , at the time there had only been cherry shrimp and a cast off leaf which had 3 peppered Cory egg's on. The leaf had been in approx 3 week's- I thought it would be great to  add to my existing herd- anyway the eggs just turned white and nothing happened so out came the shrimp, plants, logs, leaf and all water removed after a serious gravel vac. Re-set the tank and a week later I see two Cory fry!

[PJN]

Nature always finds a way! Whilst Vale! Has his potential gourami fry survive after going through that and mine don't live more than a few days.... Oh well

[Suelo]

It does look my dwarf gourami fry, but then I've never had any other fry that were so tiny so I don't know how different fry look when they are that small.

I think I must have missed reading that you had Spotted Blue Eyes amongst your tanks.

[Vale!]

No - you didn't miss it ; I don't think I've ever mentioned them!


I was just about to move those Chocolate Gourami into the Hoy tank, about six months ago,  when I popped in to #1 LFS and there they were. Apparently they'd got them to put in a display tank but somehow I came home with them and, well, Hoy was empty so in they went!


I'll resume my original course soon -  I'll just get them to swap tanks, I think.

[Suelo]

I'll be watching them with interest/envy. Your Hoy tank is soft water, isnt it?

[Gingerlove05]

Very soft if i remember correctly...

[plankton]

How long ago did you move the leaves?
They aren't normally viable for more than 4 or 5 days, except for killifish, which you have none of......
Maybe you should call it Mirac?