Holy Moley- is it possible???????

TwoTankAmin

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I have been putting off a project in my 125 gal. tank. It contains a bunch of big plants, mostly anubias, but also a couple of good sized Java ferns and a big Bolbitis heudelotii (African fern). There are only two species of fish in the tank- clown loaches,including two very large ones and, 6 very large redline barbs (Sahyadria denisonii).

The plants are covered with algae and debris and I needed to pull them for a bleach dip and cleaning. So I nabbed the big java fern out of a pile of decent sized rock and a big anubias attached to a chunk of woos mostly inside the rock pile. Behind the rock pile with the anubias is a giant cave with a big piece of slat atop it and part of the rock pile. The cave has no back so it is set against the side glass to form a back side to the cave. The fern is attached to a river rock and it sits atop the slate over the cave.

I remove the fern and its rock, got the wood and big anubias attached to it out of the rock pile and then removed one more big anubias attached to in a vertical piece of wood. These all went out into the other building into the fish space where they got bleached, rinsed, soaked in a bucket with a lot of dechlor and then put into a 20 gal can of clean water. Once all 3 plants were done I brought them back into the house to put back into the tank and that is when I saw something I never expected ever to see in my tanks. I saw what looked like a fry, maybe 3/4 of an inch. Then I spotted a few more. The were hiding in the rock/slate/cave area. Where they could hide easily and nothing else could fit.

After I did my double take and looked closely, I saw several of the fry swimming near the slate which they would then duck down behind and then come back out from again. I know they should not be clown fry, but they have me convinced by how they look that this is what they appear to be. They have very little color but they all have 3 black vertical stripes each side of their body. One strip is near the head, one is in the middle and the third is near the tail end. They all look the same.

At the very worst here I am wrong bout what they are and they are redline babies. But these are pretty rare also, but clown babies would be close to a miracle. I have returns the wood with the anubias and the fern. I saw five of the fry out while doing so. The is no chance I cou.ld catch them and pull them yo a grow tank. All I can do is cross my fingers and hope some of them manage to get bigger so I can get a posative ID. The tank has never had any other fish/water in it for over a years and was empty when a leak in the 150 where the fish had lived for years sprung a leak. So the fish and tank contents move from the 150 to the 125.

As I am typing this i am still in a fog. Clowns loach do not breed in tanks without hormone s being used. These must be fry from another tank accidentllly moved over. But I have never seen any fry like this in any of my other tanks. I must be dreaming.
 
There was a local pet store owner/master aquarist who told a very similar story about clown loach young. He was a respected and skilled fishbreeder, with excellent credibility, and no one believed him!
 
It is a poor image but it was the best I could do with my camera and not being able to get a really recent shot.

IMG_3521.JPG
 
My two biggest clowns are a male and female as far as I can tell. My understanding is that females are much fatter in terms of girth and males tend to be more streamlined. The one I believe is female is about 12 inches TL and came to me in early 2003 at about 4 inches. The males is about 10 inches TL maybe a bit more. I am not sure of when I got it as I had one that I got at the same time as the big fm or else it was one I purchased at about 7-8 inches about 8 or 10 years ago. I lost one of the two and am not sure which. However if is clearly more torpedo shaped than the larger one.

The fish in the 125 were moved there from their original home a 150 which leaked. So I transplanted everything in the 150 to the 125. That was a number of months ago 6 o or so. I made a few changes in the layout. One was to build up the rock pile and cave set-up to better hold a plant. About 4 months back I bought a gigantic java fern at my clubs auction. I divided into 3 plants. The on that was almost a foot tall and had many leaves ended up on top of the cave in the clown tank. It is in the back left corner and made great cover for the fry I spotted today.

In the summer of 23 I had to treat the 2nd biggest clan for wasting. I did this in an H tank from my summer outside set-up. I cured the fish and then power fed it a while so it gained bulked up some and then returned it to the main tank. The big one began to pick on it and did a bit of damage to its dorsal. Eventually they worked things out and he defers to her.

The big one loves to eat and will take flakes from=the surface and anything else she can get. She was not particularly afraid of me and when the food hit the water she was always ready for it. But about 6 or 8 weeks ago she became a lot more shy and would bolt for her cave when I would approach the tank to drop in food. For a while she would not even come out her cave to eat right away.

I am wondering if this recent behavior change was related to spawning in some way.

When I spotted them today I was afraid that the barbs or even a curious smaller clown came near it might see them as food. I also did not to risk spooking the fry into the open as I feared that made them more visable to the oother fish. I also wondered if the might not know how to find their way back to cover.

Similarly I highly doubted I could net them without having to pulling a lot of stuff out to expose them. And if I did that, there was no guarantee that they would hang around as I doing so. And then trying to net them would have been a challenge. I figured if I left them alone and made sure their hiding place was secure, maybe they would grow to wheer they could get beyond a barb size mouth and for the other clowns to seer them as buddies and not as lunch.

I could not tell when I snapped three quick pics in not great light and with little time to focus. I posted the only one which came close to showing one of them to some extent. I feed a few soft foods which will break into small size pieces. I always drop some bear that rocks pile. So they should be able to find food in a spot the fish to not spend much time near.

This is one time I wished I used a smart phone as I think the camera on one would have gotten a better pic. :(
 
Yes, it is possible. Exceedingly rare, but entirely possible. And if you are saying that the only two species that have set fins in that tank are Sahyadria denisonii and Clown Loaches, well then, that photo pretty much tells the tale. That can only be a Clown Loach juve.

This is truly a 'holy moley!'

If I were you, I'd play the lottery this week.
 
Wow whee!! That fry does look like a clown! I don't know what redline fry look like, but much more loachy than barblike to me.

I just looked at seriouslyfish pics of denisonii fry, similar in some ways, but not like yours!! Happy New Year my friend!!
 
This is incredible wow!
 

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