First Fry, now what?

[dgphelps]

I started my tank out with three danios and 13 micro rasbora and lots of mosses and plants. I also have red cherry shrimp (started with 13 and now I have at least 100). My danios hang hidden at the bottom and at first all looked female and drab. Recently, one of the males really darkened up and looks like the photo in the header above. Shortly after one of the danios vanished. My assumption is that the male and female paired and then drove off/killed the other male.

Almost a month ago I was feeding the tank and noticed a tiny speck. I scooped the fry up and transfered it to a floating breeder in the same tank with some moss. I went on vacation for two weeks right after and instructed the sitter to feed a few tiny flakes directly to that breeder. The fry is now clearly a celestial pearl danio and is about 1 cm long. It manages to hide even in a breeder but looks healthy and plump.

It will soon be large enough to survive in my tank, but I am worried the mated pair will pick it off if I release it. I’m not planning on starting up another tank so I wanted to see what you folks do. Do you think I could craigslist it locally or see if anyone in a local aquarium club would buy it off me as a captive raised danio? If I end up keeping it, will it suffer the mysterious fate of the other danio and vanish?

Sorry for the history, but I wanted to share my experience with others here as well as ask the question.

Thanks!,
-Daniel

[teenyinnie]

Hi daniel! Great to hear you were blessed with a fry. Its amazing how it simply survived on flakes, and with a sitter too. Maybe its a sign that you should keep it. And maybe the other danio was just not as healthy and somehow died. I think you should try to get the fry as big as possible, and then welcome it into the tank. Its got to be a good sign, the fact that it survived all by itself.

[Luke]

apparently they don’t eat their own fry tho i had a couple disappear. on the other hand you could keep it to breed with.. homebred ones appear to be more confident. i have 2 trios in a breeding tank at the moment hoping i will find fry soon.. nothing after a week!

[dgphelps]

I did a big replanting two weeks back and pulled out most of the overgrown mosses. When I did that I found the 3rd adult I thought had died way back. That gave me hope that they wouldn’t beat up the fry.

So today, at almost 2 cms I let the fry go into the main tank. He went straight to the adults and started schooling with them. They didn’t act aggressively towards him or anything. I just hope he can fight for food on his own. We’ll see!

[Author]

Posts