More Mouths to Feed

Here is a fish story update~ So a month ago I had some fish... and as you know my fish had some fish.... well I don't remember if I updated it then but 2 days later my fish had some more fish. I think it was 7 or 8 more to be exact. So I had a bunch of fish.... I started looking online to find a bigger fish tank since that many babies (aka fry) once fully grown in addition to the fish I already had would completely overcrowd my 10gal fish tank.  Eventually I found one that I managed to be the first person to respond for and got a 45gall hexagon tank with lights and a stand for FREE!!! It was perfect, it also came with an air pump and timers for the lights and a spare bulb (it had 2 blue bulbs and one big white one, the spare is another blue one) and I didn't see it at first but it had a heater too. It was originally by the previous owners used for saltwater. I cleaned it out really good and it sat for what seemed like forever and about 2 weeks ago I set it up. Then we got some gravel and a couple decorations as well as a new filter for it. I set it to go and got it all done and ready and let it cycle for a couple days. Then last weekend I moved the fish that had survived into it. Well mostly. I moved a total of 11 babies, 8 of which were white a couple have started showing some spots on them, these were 8 of the fry from the first day half of which looked gray in the beginning. Then there were 4 smaller black colored ones which were from the 2 days later as well. They were (and still are) a lot smaller than the white ones even though they are only 2 days younger. I also moved the 2 Mickey Mouse Platy, One of the Dalmatian Molly, and the silver molly. (Of the original 8 fish I had, the 2 black mollies had died by this time, as well as one silver molly) the second Dalmatian was looking more and more pregnant each day and since I knew I would have to separate her and the babies anyway I didn't want to put her in the huge tank.  So what I did was put her into the small 1 gal tank so she could give birth there and put the sole goldfish survivor back into the 10gal so he would have room to move around since he has grown quite a bit as well.

   It had been the 28 days since the previous births and so I was expecting the Dalmatian to give birth any time. (Most of the websites I have looked at said about every 28 days they would give birth once they were pregnant because they are live bearers they could only incubate so many eggs at a time and would continue to give birth for about 5 or 6 months from one pregnancy) She didn't. But I started to notice her side was looking funny and stuff and begin to think she might be sick. So then I was worried. I was doing all that I could to try and get her to feel better and to have her babies.

     Well 2 days ago on the 5th in the evening after I got home from work I noticed extra goldfish in the tank in my room. I said Mom I think my goldfish multiplied... She told me that Jennifer and joey brought over 10 goldfish because they were on sale 5/ $1.00(they are the feeder fish, so technically the same ones I got before anyway) so they bought 10. My mom said "what the heck are we going to do with these?" and they said put them in the tank and she told them she didn't think they could go in the big tank with those fish (which they can't because they like different temperatures of water and a few other reasons) so now I have an overcrowded 10gal tank again. Then as we were getting ready to eat dinner my sister Deann said "did the other fish have babies yet?" and I was like "I haven't checked" and so I did and sure enough there were fry!!! So everyone comes running into the bathroom (where the 1g was temporarily set up) to see. I counted about 18 in the plant area and Rhonda counted about 4 or 5 near the heater. Then my mom said "I think I just saw her have another one" so we left her alone to do her thing.... Well later because I knew she had seemed sick and didn't want them all affected I figured I should move the babies. Plus I hadn't thought ahead enough and realised I should've left her and the goldfish where they were (her in the 10g and him in the 1g) because the babies have to grow and there isn't a decent filter in the small tank and there wouldn't be much room. So I decided I needed to move the babies. So that night I carefully fished out all the babies with the net to put them into the bigger tank. I put them into the breeder box thing in the same water in a baggie and put it into the other tank so the temperature could acclimate. Then transferred them without transferring the water (since it was contaminated from sick momma) I put 39 fry in the box and had found 4 or 5 dead ones that went to the trash! So I gained 49 new fish in one day!!!!! Can you believe it?!! Craziness!
     Yesterday momma died! :-( its sad but I have plenty of fry to remember her by! I also lost one goldfish. Then today I lost 2 more goldfish. But since they were inexpensive and I had too many anyway I am not worried about it.

So here are some current new fish pictures! Don't mind the cloudy water, I am planning on doing a partial water change tomorrow afternoon to help with that. I also I think may need to go get some more chemicals for the water. The pictures are not the greatest because photographing through the aquarium and into water doesn't seem to be a good setting for my camera.... but here they are... oh and don't worry about the stuff at the bottom of the breeder box it's ok, it kinda food stuff they haven't really eaten but I found with the other guys as they got bigger they chose to finish what they hadn't eaten before if it didn't filter its way out the sides.

So anyways that is my latest fishy story! Wowzers! If I knew I was going to end up with so many I might not have bought the ones i did! As I realized she was pregnant and still pregnant etc and started reading about it more online I realized this is pretty common with Molly, Platy and Guppy fish all tropical fish. I never had this problem when we had tropical fish before but maybe i just wasn't observant enough than and the fry got attacked? Who knows! Anyway I hope you've enjoyed my story and maybe someday you can see my fish live if you come over. But don't ask me to name them because even if I did I probably couldn't tell you who was who or remember all the names! :-)