sneaky babies survive comunity

[guppler]

Some of you saw my posts about Pinki and BC and their babies. I had about 150 cory aenus for a whilw, but Bout a week ago we got past a significant die off event, and I think I'm down to less than half. I moved abouty 10 - 12 to each of my female guppy tanks and about half a dozen to my boy gup/ breeding tank. I think they're still a bit small for my comunity, but the ones in the comunity tank are doing great.
I thought I saw a baby flash by in the comunity tank so fast i couldn't be sure what it was a couple of times before my third brood hatched succesfully in the fry tank. Then not long after they all hatched upstairs, I saw a definite cory fry in the comunity, but at first I wasn't sure how long it had been there. I kept watching and pretty soon decided it had to be older than the ones upstairs. It was noticably bigger and more the color of their mother, rather than irregularly speckled like the younger ones. I kept looking to see if it was the only one, and finally saw 2 babies at the same time, so i called mom to come and look and while we both watched, a third one appeared. I think most likely they are either all from the first spawning, but one or 2 could be from the second spawning. There could be more hiding. They like to hide under decorations and down in the gravel. I have light natural colored rocks anywhere from small gravel size to an inch or almost 2 in the substrate, so it is easy for little ones to hide between rocks and stay safe.
I don't know how much of a problem the 4 adult cories would be, or the 3 white clouds and 5 small tetras, but the female betta died shortly after the cories started spawning, and my most agressive danios are gone naw too. I only have 2 zebras left, and now the size gap is closing in pretty fast. Sometimes I have to get a second look to be sure if I see a big baby bronze cory or Little Z, the short finned zebra danio.
They seem pretty happy in the comunity e4ven though I never did anything special for them. They just managed to survive long enough on whatever was there and now they swim around with the big cories, just burrowing a little further int tiny spaces to gather food from the bottom and occasionally they even play around in plain sight and rest on top of some of the decorations.
Pinki and BC probably could spawn again any time now. The fourth spawn was pretty small and they didn't like moving into the baby tank for a couple of days, but I think some of my smallest are from that spawn. I'm not sure if anyof them got eaten by their sibblings or if they just hid really well for a while, but I think if i do get new eggs, the new ones will get the fry tank to themselves, and the old babies will have to finish growing up with gupies or comunity if big enough until I can find them new homes.

 

[millym]

i love your story just goes to show that some babies can survive. we had a black mollie fry who must have survived for nearly a week in our community tank despite all the big mouths ( tiger barbs,red eye tetras & loaches )waiting to snap her up for lunch. i spotted the teeny baby well over a week after our black mollie gave birth swimming along the front of the tank & i had to rescue her. put her in a breeder box in the main tank where she stayed till we finally let her in with the big boys. that was about 3 months ago, shes now about an inch long but still small & quite happy in her new big home

 

[guppler]

yeah, sometimes the babies do pretty well. I guess in nature it works to just have such a big brood that only a small percentage need to survive to keep the species going.
my 3 are growing fast and so are the ones in the fry tank. i'm surprized at the variation in size. Some look almost like the ones in the comunity tank and some are much smaller, but there aren't just 2 distinct sizes. It's a gradual range with everything in between.
When my guppies were new I kept their first broods in breeder boxes, but after about a month there were so many, I didn't bother. I've been getting much smaller broods since Dot died, but once i count, say, 9 tiny babies, i can usually still count the same number every time I check. Of course that's in my guppy only tanks, and they get fed pretty well, but i don't know that my guppies have ever eaten guppies. I was concerned when Jill was suddenly thinner and there were no babies, but that was when i only had Jack and Jill and they shared their tank with Opal, the betta. I didn't see her eat the kids either, but she was big enough. I'm not even really sure there were kids at that point, but that was when I got breeder boxes and more guppies and stopped keeping bettas with breeding guppies. My guppies hated breeder boxes. I've mostly use them for mystery snails hatching in the goldfish tank.
I was starting to wonder if bandit did get in on the spawning until the cories in the fry tank finally started turning bronzey and irridescent instead of spotted and streaked with brown.

 

[jollysue]

congrats.