About a month ago, my little zebra danio graduated from the nursery tank and moved into the big fish tank with all the grownup fish. It had taken him about 4 months to reach 1-inch long, with most of that time spent in various small tanks and containers, before he went into the magic nursery.

Today, my two baby peppered corydora catfish (Corydoras paleatus) had their own graduation day, moving out of the magic nursery and into the big 38-gallon tank where their parents live. It took these two only about 6 or 7 weeks to reach the 1-inch length.

Here’s one of the young corydoras, exploring the new big tank. Before releasing them into the big tank, they spent some time floating in a cup at the top of the tank, to get accustomed to the new temperature. You can see the two of them, along with a baby snail stowaway:

Hard to believe, but it was about four months ago when I harvested a big mess of zebra fish fry from my fish tank. There were about three dozen of the little wrigglers, each no more than a little line with a dot at one end. Only about 3mm long, not yet free-swimming, they were tiny.

The first month or so was hard on them, with a couple big die-offs, and then they were re-housed a number of times as I kept trying to come up with a better solution. Finally there were just two left when I set up a dedicated 1-gallon nursery ‘tank’, and then before long, only one of them was left.

That last one has held on though, and thrived in the nursery. With the advent of several clutches of snail eggs, the nursery was upgraded to a 5-gallon tank, and the solitary juvinile zebra fish has continued to thrive and grow.

Now, at age 4 months, he’s roughly one inch long and big enough to be a serious threat to any other fry that go into the nursery. (Did I mention my corydoras were breeding like crazy?)

So today is graduation day. Today the sole surviving zebra fry is graduating from the nursery and rejoining his parents in the main tank. He’s big enough not to get eaten, and he knows how to socialize with others. (For a week I put one of the adult zebras in the nursery with him to make sure he could deal with it.)

His name is Les, because he is a survivor.

After moving Les to the 23 gallon fish tank where he hatched from a tiny egg 4 months ago, I watched him for a while. He actually seemed happy and excited – swimming in the big tank, with the big fish.

I must admit, it made me feel proud.

My betta fish named Alpha still has a 5.5 gallon aquarium all to himself. Well, himself and a colony of Bythinia tenticulata snails (aka faucet snails).

At first I thought the faucet snails were baby apple snails, as they are very, very similar in form. However, the B. tenticulata do not have labial tenticals, and their adult size is somewhere between a pea and a bb. They are sort of along the same line as ‘pest snails’ but unlike the accursed planorbids, faucet snails do not (in my experience) take over the aquarium like a swarm of locusts.

So, being that they are like micro-sized apple snails, I decided to keep some of these little guys, and put them in the Alpha Betta Base. They have been doing fine there, and are onto their second generation in fact.

Of course, the real star of the tank is Alpha the Betta. Betta snobs wouldn’t much like Alpha, he’s just a run-of-the-mill standard pet-store betta. His colour goes from darkest blue at his nose to a dark ‘royal’ blue at his tail. There are some undertones of red here and there.

Oddly, he’s a bit of a coward. Now and then I’ll hold a mirror next to the tank, and his immediate reaction is not to flare aggressively – it’s to run and hide behind a plant.

After losing almost all of my zebrafish fry, I finally got the idea to set up a small separate tank for them. I was down to just two fry at this point. I got a 1-gallon ‘MiniBow’ tank that had an undergravel filter, and set it up.

I put the zebrafish fry in it, and also dropped in a single Physa snail (aka pond snail aka bladder snail) and a single trumpet snail, and put in some leaves that had come off a plant in another tank.

Within a week, one of the two fry simply vanished – leaving just a solitary survivor. I have named him Les because he is a survivor.

He’s growing quite slowly, because unfortunately the tank is unheated. I may have to fix that as it gets colder with the changing seasons. So he’s just over 1/2 inch long, but he’s a perfect copy of the adults, just in miniature.

Meanwhile the physa and trumpet snails have both been reproducing; there are lots of baby physas crawling around, and I’ve seen a few baby trumpets lurking around the gravel.

My 38-gallon aquarium, aka the Snail Tank, is where my apple snails live, along with some friendly fish. Not that I think people want to read all the nitty gritty details of my aquarium, so this is more or less for me, so if my memory goes, I will have something to refer back to.

There’s five apple snails in there right now. Speed Racer is my original snail, he (or she) is also the biggest. Then Big Blue, whom I am certain is a female, has been with me second-longest. Little Buddy is like a little brother or cousin to Speed Racer, and is definately male. Shelly is a pretty golden girl. And then the most-recent addition, a little golden male who doesn’t have an official name yet. I call him Munchkin though cos he’s kind of cute.

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OMG – this morning I was sitting around trying to think of some good ways to procrastinate on my chores, when I noticed something small, dark and wriggly scooting along just above the gravel in my aquarium.

I moved in for a closer look, and to my shock there was a wee little teeny tiny Peppered Cory catfish! A baby catfish!

A kitten fish! Squeeee!

My two corydoras have been mating like crazy for what seems like at least two months, but I didn’t think anything had come of it – the eggs looked like duds, and they all get eaten within a few days. So this was totally unexpected!

The little baby is about 1/2 inch long, I don’t know how old that would make it, and I don’t know if there might be others. It’s obviously done a very good job at hiding, to have survived to get to this size.

It looks just like the parents, except in miniature.

Yay!

So my two remaining zebra danio fry continue to live and grow! Of the seven that went into the breeder basket in my big tank, 5 of them wandered out through the slats (why make a breeder basket that fry can get in and out of?!) and were soon disappeared. I believe they were eaten by the rasboras. But two of the fry stayed in the breeder basket.

Eventually I got an idea that I should have had like 3 weeks ago. I picked up a small cheap “aquarium” to use as a nursery. A 1 gallon “minibow” acrylic tank, it uses an under-gravel filter with an air bubbler. Cheap and inadequate as a ‘real’ tank, it works fine as a nursery tank for my remaining fry.

I put them in, threw in a pair of ‘pest’ snails (a physa and a trumpet) and a bit of plant that had been floating around one of my tanks. Voilla! Fry nursery.

The remaining fry are growing well, they’ve gotten a bit longer but more importantly, they are ‘filling out’ and becoming little fish. They’re a little under 1/2 inch long, their bodies are growing more fish-shaped and they’re slowly getting all their little fins. Their tails are the right shape. The photos still don’t do them justice, but you get the idea.

I just wish I’d have thought of the nursery tank before I lost 5 of the fry in the 38 gallon tank. Sigh. Also I haven’t gotten any more fry out of my zebra danios in a long time – some new pest has moved into the gravel and is efficiently eliminating all the fry, possibly before they even hatch out.

Nursery Tank