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Surprise fish

GlassWalker

Member
Joined
30 Jun 2014
Messages
205
Location
Swindon
Some may remember my planted tank and battle with clado. Hearing that very high doses of liquid carbon can kill it, I tried it after moving all livestock to another tank. That failed, and I was about to nuke the tank and sell it. But earlier today, when I looked inside, I found some black bee shrimps. That was not too surprising since I had some in there before. What was surprising was seeing a really tiny little fish swim around in the back corner. That made it incredibly difficult to photograph as there was a lot of plant in the way, but I got the two shots below. Any ideas what it is?

You may ask what was in the tank before I removed the livestock. I had a load of ember tetra. More recently I did get some extra crystal shrimps from LFS to increase the genetic variety, so could a fish egg somehow have hitched in with them?

I'm not convinced this is a baby ember, but do recognise that fish can change a lot between fry and adult stages.

I'm now thinking of leaving the tank running longer and see if anything else pops up.

C7D_7771_DxO.jpg


C7D_7773_DxO.jpg
 
That is amazing...the only things that turn up in my tank unexpectedly are horrible nasties of one sort or another. Really curious to find out what it is...someone must have an idea! And definitely leave the tank for a while yet...
 
Hi I don't know what the fish is but found the thread interesting. Is amazing what you find when you decide to shut a tank down. Any pics of the Bees?
 
2shrimp-m.jpg

This isn't from today, but was earlier when they were in this same tank.

Think I'll have to start feeding the tank again. Tank hasn't had anything serious done to it recently, other than top up of evaporation, low dose of ferts and daily overdose of liquid carbon. Aatually, it is even more surprising there's much in the tank as I was seriously overdosing at around 15ml, compared to the normal dose of 1ml per 50L, in a 125L nominal tank.
 
What's your plan now then? Are you going to combine them in another tank or gett them breeding where they are?
 
My original plan was to close this tank. As said, I had moved everything I wanted to keep out previously. I could keep it going as a purely shrimp breeding tank with the few still in there, plus the mystery fish if it makes it. My new tank is shrimp plus lots of fish and I'm not sure I've seen any baby shrimps yet. Either they're hiding good, or the fish have a food source. To leave this tank running will take minimal effort from me I guess. I'll see what happens as I've got a new marine tank today that needs setting up... that could take a while.
 
That sounds a good plan to leave it running if they are happy in there, go on let them breed, oh and thanks for putting the pic up nice shot.
 
It is sort of ember body shape - quite deep compared to a lot of fry.
 
Last year I bought a little Java on a piece of bogwood from Pets at Home. I put it in my fishless tank.

A few days later, I noticed 4 little fish swimming around! Only 1 survived (Sparky) and it turns out that it was a Dwarf Neon Rainbowfish. It now swims around quite merrily with some Embers and Lampeyes.

Apparently, they spawn eggs and attach them to surfaces like bogwood.

It deffo looks Emberish to me Glasswalker.
 
The belly looks redder today than it did yesterday. It was more the pattern near the tail that confused me since it is absent on the adult embers, but I know fry and adults can look very different.
 
I haven't seen it in the last few days, but have been putting food in. It is a rather big tank for a little fish, so unless it wants to be found, I'm unlikely to find it.
 
I need to try and get a new photo some time, but looking at the fish another black spot is developing on the body near the front. This makes me believe it could be an odessa barb as I have kept them in this tank previously. The thing is, I removed the adults in June last year before I put in the ember tetra. That just seem too big a gap for fry to show up now, unless they start as near microscopic dots and do take this long to get something visible.
 
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