puzzling new inhabitants...

waytiuk · Post by **waytiuk** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 5:58 pm

My RCS shrimp tank is humming along nicely, with the addition of some new stock I got from another hobbyist in my city, along with a very big handful of Christmas moss, which I'd been looking for unsuccessfully for ages. There's an assortment of generations, with some very little guys, berried females, and pregnant females.
But, mysteriously (i suspect they must somehow have come in with the moss, but the tank they all came from is a shrimp-only ten gallon), I am counting eight very small fish fry! They all have egg-bellies, so they did not come from livebearing fish. Some are showing a bit of greenish colour on top and silver hind ends. All so far are just nibbling the algae on the plants in the tank.
My worry: not knowing WHAT they are (I e-mailed the person I got the shrimp from, but haven't had a reply), should I attempt to net them and put them in a fry cage in my community tank, thus causing panic in the tank, I'm sure-- or would it be safe to leave them for a bit until they get a little bigger and easier to catch-- but also, presumably more likely to snack on new-hatched shrimp if they can?
So far, they don't seem to be carnivorous. They were not at all interested in picking at the body of one shrimp that died (don't know why, she was the only fatality so far...)

ToddnBecka · Post by **ToddnBecka** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 8:02 pm

No worries, the fry will almost certainly be eating micro-crittters living among the moss for the first few weeks. I had a couple of rainbow fish eggs arrive on some plants, the fry grew up with the shrimp w/out any problems. I moved them out of the tank when they were large enough to join the school in the 55.

mikedmatthews · Post by **mikedmatthews** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 9:31 pm

when i first got my rainbow shrimp, i tossed them in a tank that previously had some danios in it and they hatched out after the shrimp were introduced. the shrimp actively hunted them down in a couple days. i only salvaged a couple of them.

waytiuk · Post by **waytiuk** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 6:05 am

Okay, since they haven't shown any interest in anything but the algae, I'll let them be until they are a bit bigger, and then maybe I'll be able to figure out what they are!

wijnands · Post by **wijnands** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 7:20 am

If they are bigger and you need help on the ident a picture would help.

waytiuk · Post by **waytiuk** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 7:43 am

I'm still working on getting in focus shots of the shrimp, which are about twenty times bigger than these li'l guys! But when the mystery fish get big enough, I'll try...

pleco_breeder · Post by **pleco_breeder** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 2:35 pm

Hello,

I'm going to take a premature guess at the mystery critter. Seeing that it was a shrimp only tank, I'm guessing that you had some copepod hitchhikers in the moss. I've got 3 species that I culture, and one of them very much resembles danio/white cloud fry. Only time will tell.

Larry Vires

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 8:02 pm

I am counting eight very small fish fry! They all have egg-bellies, so they did not come from livebearing fish. Some are showing a bit of greenish colour on top and silver hind ends.

I think there were some fish eggs in the moss. It doesn't sound like copepods tome.

waytiuk · Post by **waytiuk** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 8:22 am

nope, these are definitely very small fish. well, will just have to let them grow for awhile, since very small fish, like brand-new human babies all look very much alike...

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 2:46 pm

Only if you are not the parents...

Post by **Mustafa** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 3:29 pm

badflash wrote:Only if you are not the parents...

I think in the fish baby case we can be pretty sure that waytiuk is not the parent.

waytiuk · Post by **waytiuk** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 4:04 pm

oh, my gills and fins are all a-flutter