My mystery snail clutch hatched! Since I wasn’t even sure the eggs were fertile, this is very exciting. I wish I could have seen it happening, but I just walked in to feed my fish and saw all these little pinhead-sized specks in the bottom of the breeder net…
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- Hatchery Setup
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- Unhatched Eggs
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- Eggshells
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- Tiny Babies
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- Tiny Floater
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- Floater Closeup
I dropped in a shrimp pellet crumbled up into tiny pieces, but my angelfish started pecking at the bottom of the net as the pellet dissolved. They were able to suck most of the food out before the baby snails even got to it. I figured out, though, that the plastic frame running around the bottom of the net was a great place to put food. The fish can occasionally knock a piece of food off the frame, but mostly, it protects the food and lets the snails find it easily.
I got a video of the angelfish (and even the cories) trying to steal food…
In other news:
New plants! I got some crypts (Cryptocoryne wendtii “green”) and managed to wedge them into place in the 55-gal tank. Hopefully they’ll adapt to the tank and start spreading.
Now for the bad news (and a cautionary tale): two of the eight harlequin rasboras I got a week ago have died in the quarantine tank.
This is why we quarantine.
The others seem fine, so hopefully those will be the only casualties, but obviously, it’s too soon to tell. As always, I’ll extend the quarantine period until the tank has gone death- and symptom-free for at least four weeks.
