There's a big surprise in my 72G african tank this evening!
The tank houses a group of breeding copadichromis borleyi (huge fish! 7+ inch), 7 compressiceps, 7 ventralis, a couple of albino peacocks and 8 synodontis multipunctatus.
When I was inspecting my tank a few minutes ago, I noticed something small wiggling beneath a big rock. I was shocked as I don't have any small fish in this tank. I stripped my c. borleyis all the time otherwise it would be a snack for the other occupants. I used my flashlight to get a closer look and I just can't believe my eyes!
A synodontis multipunctatus fry that's a little less than 1cm in length !
I've seen in many occassions where the female synos releases her eggs and they was all eaten up by the larger guys; especially the compressiceps. But somehow, this one fertilized-egg must have lodged somewhere in the rock work and managed to hatch and survived to this size. I guesstimate the age of the fry is no more than 3 weeks old.
I frantically grab a couple of nets and managed to get him/her out of the tank before being consumed by hungry cichlids. It's swimming happily now in a growout tank along with the c. borleyi fry. I'll post a picture later on as lighting is not so good for pictures at the moment.
Congrats! Always exciting to have babies!
Congrats. :)
Good thing you caught it when you did, I think it stands a much better chance of surviving now. Good luck!
Finally able to snap photo of the little guy....
Nice!!!!
Aweeeeeeeeee what a cutie and look at that nice big belly :D.
Good catch!
In case you are wondering what happened to that cute little guy, he is a big boy now :) He is around 3.5 inch long and have joined his big family a year ago. This is what he looks like today...