*Something* breeding?

[browntown]

I'm new to keeping fish, and any other aquatic creature, and I've been stumped a couple of times in the past two weeks.

The first freaky sight was a FULL molt from a bamboo shrimp.. I've seen bits and pieces before, but this was the whole thing, I recovered once Mr. Shrimp resurfaced after hiding for several days.

Tonight, I noticed something strange, and I've tried researching to see what the source might be, but I'm at a loss. Around the doorway of the coconut shell cave, I noticed a bunch of little spots, they look like they could be eggs of some sort. They're kind of pink/peach, and definitely weren't there when I did a water change on Saturday. I have a male apistogramma who seems protective of the cave, although he's the only one of his kind in the tank. Aside from the apistogramma, there are 5 cardinal tetras, 5 oto cats, several amano shrimp, one bamboo shrimp, and a lot of snails.

Any idea of what they might be? I tried getting a picture, but nothing came out clear enough to make sense of what you can see.

[robt18]

What type of snails are they? If they're mystery/apple snails then it could be their eggs, although they only lay their eggs outside of water and then they fall in later. If the apisto is defending it I would assume it has something to do with him (are you sure its a him?) but it soundslike something else...

[Fishnut]

I was leaning more to the snails as well...depending on what kind they are.  I have some horned nerites and they lay eggs that look like that on wood all the time.

[browntown]

What type of snails are they? If they're mystery/apple snails then it could be their eggs, although they only lay their eggs outside of water and then they fall in later. If the apisto is defending it I would assume it has something to do with him (are you sure its a him?) but it soundslike something else...

Pretty confident that it's a male, the previous owner thought that she was getting one male, one female, but the guy I have now killed the other before I took over the tank. It very well could be the snails, there are horned nerites, and malaysian trumpet snails in this tank as well. It just seemed odd that this male fish seemed to be hanging out around the eggs. Any chance he'd want to eat them? It looks like there are fewer today than there were yesterday.

[Melody]

It could be the Nerites, they lay eggs everywhere.   P. bridgesii Applesnails lay eggs above the waterline, A. spixi & Marisa applesnails lay below the water.  MTS are livebearers.

[browntown]

Sorry for the crappy quality, but this is the best I could get without flash. This is what I was talking about before, this pic only shows half of what I saw the first night, but there were even more just inside the doorway on the "roof" of the shell. It took about two days until they all disappeared.

[fischkopp]

The pinkish colour makes me think of apistogramma eggs. It's quite hard to tell, but you can take the picture below as reference (different apisto species).

[Melody]

They don't look like the Nerite eggs I've seen.  I'm not in the least well informed about Cichlid breeding, so I'll leave that theory to those who are.