This whole episode has been typical for my tanks. I have said for years that my well water apparently contains a natural fish aphrodisiac. I have had a lot of fish spawn in my tanks without any intention that they do so on my part. The one exception has been the B&W plecos.
The list of surprise spawnings started almost from day one. My first tank, a 45 gal. had both a hang on filter and an under gravel filter. The stand was a metal one which only supported the the frame. I had read that over time I could expect a build up of gunk under the filter plate. I also had decided to run the UGF using a powerhead rather than air. I eventually converted the system to being an RUGF. It was not uncommon that the process of removing the prefilterted powerhead to clean the prefilter caused me to pull the uplift tube out of the plate.
Fast forward and I decided I should take a look from under the tank to see what sort of gunk build up was under the plate. What I found was not much gunk but instead I spotted a number of swordtail and panda cory fry swimming around under the plate. I knew I had to free them and all that this entailed. By, that time I had also begun using live plants.
I had to break down the entire tank to free the fish. It also spelled the end of my foray in UGF/RUGFs. I had opted for a Marineland Emperor 400 filter on the tank but when I wanted to replace the RUGF I chose to get my first Aquaclear hang on, a 200 gph. It was also my first of a long list of surprise fry appearing in tanks.
The redlines were just the last species I added to the list. I even had threadfin rainbow fry show up, But when that happened I had no clue how to keep them alive and they only lasted a week before they were gone.
What makes this so interesting to me was that I had a list of rules I made up as I was working to get my first tank set up. Here are a few of those rules and how they worked out over time.
1. I never wanted one of those ugly fish that liked to suck onto the glass. No bristlenose for me.
Since then I have had at lease 1,000 plecos born in my tanks.
2. I would only keep fake plants in tanks since I had kept several gardens, both flowers and veggies for a number of years.
Since then I have had more live plants than I can count. I have had anubias outgrow my 6 foot tanks. I have had as many as a dozen planted tanks at one time.
3. I would never want on of those bulky under the tank filters.
I
have had as many as 3 Eheim canisters running on tanks at the same time and still have 2 going today.
4. I had no desire at all to have any fish spawn in my tanks, However, I did feel that I should try to have both sexes for any species I might keep.
I have had a lot of fish give me both planned and unplanned fry over the years: assorted pleco species, assorted corys, 3 danio species, rosy barbs, 2 or 3 pseudomugil rainbow species, angels, P. nicholsi, the threafins above, Neo. davidi shrimp, betta imbellis, and finally the redline barbs.
It has been 26 years and I am sure I have forgotten a few species for the list above. I did not bother to include the swordtails since the harder thing to do is not to have them spawn. But they were why I had to get my second tank- to grow out swords. I have gotten surprise fry twice in tanks I was setting up and into which I was dosing ammonia. Both times I transferred eggs on plants without realizing I was doing so.
I did my first happy fish dance when I spotted my first tiny sword fry staring up at me from the cover of the floating plants in my first tank. I am still doing the dance these days, but with a bit less vigor as I seem to have aged for some reason
(edited for typos as usual)
