and on the 12th day I created fish fry

[Tabberwok]

Hello, this is my first time posting, so correct me if I do something wrong.

I recently got a fluval Ebi from a friend (I have never had a nanotank before and I thought I'd try shrimp or a betta). and I set it up 12 days ago. I have a organic soil base with shrimp stratum on top. When I filled the tank I used mature water from my 40 gal and aged tap with water conditioner, and used some media from my other filter as well so speed cycling along. For plants I have plants from my other tank (hornwort), some throw aways from my friend (the jungle val and bacopa), and duckweed and some mystery plants I got out of a pond. The plants are doing well aclimating and I was reasonably certain my only inhabitant was the one pond snail I got from the wild plants, but then I started to notice hydras.
Before going out and getting fenbendazole (which I have used in my other tanks for hydras), I decided to try to kill most of them with warm salt water.

This killed a decent amount of hydras but as I was flushing the salt water out I noticed a baby fish in my tank. I have not introduced any fish so i figured eggs must have been on the wild plant or a mosquito fish fry could have eluded me for a while, though it's doubtful. I put the end of a pair of tights over the filter intake and got the water taken care of. About two hours later there are 3 total fish fry, and this morning I'm looking at 5 fish in my tank. I am highly doubtful 5 mosquito fish fry could have avoided me for so long, so I'm pretty sure it's an egg laying fish and they came in on the plants. Any ideas what they could be? I got the pond plants from Aiken, South Carolina.
Regardless of what they are, I'm excited because wow I have set up this tank without spending a single cent!! including fish apparently!! (sorry about the cell pictures)

Full tank:





the first fry isolated in a jar as i replaced the water:

[wicca27]

that small no way of knowing, i tend to get blue fin killi from plants. i ended up with 3 or 4 from plants i got a pet shop. let them grow and see what they turn into might be something cool. and congrats on the babies

[Tabberwok]

yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing what i've got

[MSG]

One pair of tights around the intake of the filter isn't going to prevent the tiny fish from getting pulled into the intake.

It's going to take at least a month of proper food before it will be large enough to see what kind of fish it's going to become. Most fish look the same when they've just recently hatched out of eggs.

Most fry will refuse crushed powdered foods.

Good luck with the little seedlings.

[Tabberwok]

I was just wondering if anyone had any guesses as to what they could be. and I will look into getting a sponge filter online(there is no LFS/decent petstore where I live) the fry mostly hang out at the very top and the tights are double thickness so I am hoping they are good for the immediate right now. I've bred fish before and dealt with fry, I just haven't done anything that's not livebearing.

[wicca27]

if it was me (i did this with angel fish to get them to eat) i would get decap brine eggs and turn off the filter and use an air stone. the decap brine shrimp eggs get moved around by the air stone so it made the babies go after the food more cause it "moved" you can do small water changes to make up for the lack of filter. or move the fry to a bowl or large pickle jar and it will be easier to feed them and keep them clean cause no substrate to mess with. i like micro worms too cause they live for quite a while.

[Tabberwok]

i haven't changed anything other than offer them some egg yolk (which the 2 larger ones ate, i dont know if the others are even ready to eat yet) but I just wanted to say there are now 6 lol

[Tabberwok]

after a pH spike that killed 5 of the 6 I am back down to my one original fry (who was still in the jar...) he's now about 12 days old. he has a fry box too now to keep him from getting lost (rather than him getting eaten, the only things in the tank other than him/her are my shrimp)

[KenRC51]

Subscribed!!! I wanna see how this fish turns out. Keep us posted!!

[Tabberwok]

Back with an update and photos
S/He's 38 days old, a little over a half inch long now, prefers the upper portion of the tank, and is still pretty spooked by the shrimp and the nerite. I feed very very finely ground up fish flake and some powdered reptaid that i have for my baby snakes... Any ideas as to an ID??



aand a close up


s/he's also not confined to the fry box now

[steven p]

It almost looks like a striped shiner and a neon tetra made a baby..

[auban]

looks like some species of Pseudomugil to me.

[Axelrodi202]

I'm guessing some sort of rainbowfish

[Tabberwok]

it could only be a Pseudomugil if someone's dumping those into the water in the SE united states, but i do admit it looks a lot like one. I hadn't thought of that

[longgonedaddy]

at first I thought it was a Bluefin killi, but the extra dorsal fin makes me agree with the others on it being a rainbow of some sort.