I have 'invisible' baby cories!

A few days ago I found a lead floating around my main tank with four cory eggs attached. That same morning I'd got up to cory eggs on my glass but they'd all been eaten so to find the leaf with intact eggs got me a little excited.

I knew I had to give the eggs a chance so I popped them into a clean glass with some tank water and an air stone bubbling away and popped the glass to one side. This time of year room temp is high enough not to be worrying about heaters and cories like it cool anyway.

So yesterday I got my little 30 litre tank out of the cupboard, added some white paper to it's base (I've bred cories before and I know how tiny they are, white paper on the base makes them easier to see) added my heater and my sponger filter, some water from the main tank and put the glass with the eggs inside the tank ... what would be would be.

Yesterday I went to check on the eggs and I knew hatching must be imminent - I had 2 burst eggs and a unburst that had fallen from the leaf and was sat on the bottom of the glass. The 3rd egg looked as if nothing was happening with it. I tipped the glass into the tank and left it to see what would happen with the unburst egg over night.

I had a look in the tank this morning and could see nothing so I vowed to empty it and pack it away after breakfast.

I've just got up and had another check and that's when I saw something move. Was that a tiny cory? Then I saw something scuttle across the corner of the tank again ...hmm. So I moved the filter and nothing ... just when I'd decided my tired eyes are playing tricks on me I saw something move again! There's a tiny cory in the tank for sure and as for the other 2 or 3 ... well I can only 'see' one!!

I've bred peppered cories in the past and never had any trouble seeing them against the white background but this little guy is virtually invisable until he/she moves. Never in my life have I seen anything so minute! I got a photo ... I've had to crop it just to be able to make it out! See if you can spot it



Just for an idea of scale that largest trumpet snail in the photo is about half a centimetre in length.

So now we need to guess the culprit. Well it's not a peppered cory, that much is for certain, which leaves my panda's or melini's. My guess would be my panda's but only time will tell .... and only time will tell if there are any more in this tank!

Blowed if I can see it!

lol! tell me about it! I'm blowed if I can find it in the tank now ... it's hiding somewhere in there

If you look to the right of the largest snail you can see the outline of the selotape that's holding on the white paper. Right on the edge of the line furthest away you can just make out a dark spot ... if you stare at it long enough you might just make out it's tail. I wish I had a way to draw a circle around it but I havn't unfortunately.

These are the smallest newly hatched fish I have ever seen and I've had peppered cories, bolivian rams and my laetacara curvicep fry and I thought they were tiny!!

Woo hoo! I saw it, I saw it. Of course I had to get out the binoculars, but my eyes are not what they once were.
Panda or Melini, I am as a friends daughter would say 'Happy at you'

well done you Mr Doodles!! Would you like to call round and see if you can find it in the tank? It's disappeared!

I'm dreading needing to do a water change ... water changing with invisible fry?! Nightmare is not the word lol

A little update on the baby cory. I've just gone to break down his tank as I'd spent a week looking for him and I honestly thought he was dead. That's when I saw him move! He's still alive and doing well so he's been evicted while I did a water change on his tank. I got him into one of those little 5ml cups that come with fish medications ... At the moment all you can see is his eyes, everything else is just clear. He's a strong lil fella, he was not impressed about being evicted and was darting about in the cup.

I got a photo of him but whether you'll all be able to see him this time I don't know!! Let's have a go anyway ...



If you want to go by clock hands lets say 7.35

My, hasn't he grown!

no, not really it's just the photo. He's barely grown much at all but he does seem healthy so she's finding something to eat amongst the moss that I've added and a piece of fine filter wool from my external. He's too tiny for anything else really. Normally I'd add some liquifry but for just one fish I'm worried that adding liquifry might foul up his water too fast.

It's difficult to know what to do for the best. He's still 'invisable' until he moves within the tank

Akasha wrote:adding liquifry might foul up his water too fast.

If you think one drop of liquifry is too much. You could dilute it into some water, then just add a small amount of that water. Looks like he could do with a burger and chips to build him up.

Would he eat baby brine shrimp - I don't know - but if you've plans on raising baby brine shrimp for angel fry, then now could be a good time to do a test run, just so you know what's involved and have the right equipment at hand. I'm sure they'd be lots left over for your other fish too.

How do you know what it is? it could be an angelfish!

it's definitely a cory.. I know cory eggs when I see em lol. I've raised loads of cories - all peppered so they are black and easy to see and a bit bigger. With the peppered lot I did feed them on liquifry for the first month and I used to add two drops to a measuring cup of tank water then run it through a pippette a couple of times to mix it in and then aim it over a moss ball. I did that for the first month and then after that I'd add a tiny bit of tetraMin baby to the cup and mix that in with the liquifry and then I'd gradually reduce the liquifry and increase the tetraMin baby until they were solely on that.

I did try doing the brineshrimp thing a while back for the baby cories but I had no real success with it - I got some Waterlife brineshrimp in a bottle and followed the instructions on the bottle to hatch them but nothing happened so I gave up. Once the baby cories were a couple of months old I got them some frozen cyclops instead and they did well on that a couple of times a week.

Somewhere I have loads of photo's of my baby peppered growing up but this cory is either a panda or a melini and it's throwing me how tiny it is in comparison. My curvicep fry were bigger!

these are peppered cories hatching

well I'm now starting to doubt myself. The more I look back at my photo's of baby peppered cories the less I suspect this baby is a cory ... it's just the wrong shape! I know I added 4 cory eggs and the sponge filter that had been in my community tank ... what's the chances that the cory eggs didn't make it but something 'hitch-hiked' in on the sponge filter? I'd say pretty high. I have my palmeri tetra's that are breeding all the time. I also have my purple harlequins that are breeding too ... this little fish is small enough to be either.
At the same time I've never seen newly hatched panda or melini cory ... maybe they do differ in shape to the peppered cories ... they are after all half the size of peppered.

So for now, the jury is out on the breed of this tiny fish. All I know is I'm going to keep it alive so that I get to find out what it is!

Today I moved it to a smaller tank. I have another 30 litre tank that is sectioned off into two and so now the tiny lone baby fish is in the small section. It'll be easier to look after and keep clean

Shame about the brine shrimp. You have to have very good eye sight to see when they hatch, sometimes there can be 1,000's but you just don't see them. With experience, you can tell when they hatch by the colour. Sometimes a batch will just fail, which can be annoying when they're in demand, but I found that boiled egg can help fill the gap. I posted about that here, somewhere.

Just for fun. I'm going to say it's an angelfish
Well done, your first angelfish

hahaha I doubt it's an angel ... although it would be nice

Curiouser and curiouser, cried Alice.

Hi, I've got both bronze and peppered cory's in my tank and on one occasion had a small clump of eggs on the glass and just didn't know where they had come from. The next day they had gone so I don't know who's eggs they were.

I have bronzes too Rich but they are all boys - no chance of spawning from them! My peppered lot are getting old and they've not spawned in ages so my guess would be that they are past it now. The panda's though are still in their prime and my melini's have been with me less than a year so anything is possible from them.

This started out with cory eggs on the glass - which had all been eaten. It was the discovery of the leaf with 4 intact cory eggs the same day that set me off on this. To begin with the little fella looked like a cory - albeit a colourless one but now ... I'm just not sure he is a cory.

Time will tell I guess!

okay ... so I have an I.D now on the 'mystery fry'.

It's definitely not a cory of any type. That much I've been sure of for a week at least. About a week ago I went to planet catfish and saw photo's of week old, month old and 2 month old panda cories and there was no way this little fry was a panda cory. It was the wrong shape and had started to spend time in the upper levels of his tank instead of sitting on the bottom as cories of all ages do.

So that left me with either a baby harlequin (*bounce*, I'd love to breed them) or a baby nematobrycon palmeri tetra.

Yesterday, I cleaned out his little tank (I've been water changing him every 3 days) and my has he grown! I thought I could see some colour appearing in him but with the main tank to water change too I didn't have time to linger over him. This morning when I went to check on him (and add some liquifry/tetramin baby mixture to his tank) I realised he was sitting near the front of the tank. I finally got a good look at him. He's got a dark line showing down the lower half of his body which means he can't be a harlequin as they are dark blue/purple with gold heads. By process of elimination then what I have is a baby palmeri tetra!

At the moment I'm hoping 'he' is actually a 'she' as that will mean I can keep 'him'. I have 5 males already and the fighting is already a problem. I currently have one adult male with only half a tail - he spent about 3 days sparring with another male and was losing but wasn't giving in despite losing part of his tail and the rest of his fins being torn to bits!
If things continue I may be forced to rehome 4 males and so I can't consider adding another

So, that then makes me wonder how this little guy/or girl got into this tank! I can only presume that along with the 4 cory eggs on the leaf there was also some tetra eggs too! I've watched the tetra's spawning and their eggs are not visable to the eye.
When cleaning the main tank yesterday I found more leaves floating around and so now those leaves are in with the fry in the hope there might be more invisable eggs and this little guy can have some friends

Sure hope it's a girl!

thanks Mr Doodles .... at least someone is reading my posts!

I read your post,he he.

Might be a new species!

lol Dean ...

pretty certain now it's a palmeri tetra. The only other fish I have with a stripe down their body are the SAE's and there's no evidence of those breeding in captivity at all so the chances of it being a SAE are zero.

No idea where he's hiding this morning though ... he's in a tiny compartment with nothing but a sponge filter and a clump of moss but still he manages to hide seriously well! He's determined to survive

Hi,

I've got 11 harlequins in my tank and there are several doing the 'showing off dance' to each other, so from what you say about the size of the eggs there would be no chance of me seeing them. I've also got 3 danio's in the tank, a zebra, pearl and a leapard, and what I can remember from my youth was when I breed them I covered a clean tank with marbels and the eggs would be scattered down the cracks. You could then remove the parents and the fry could hatch in safety.

Rich

Hi Rich ... thanks for the tip on the marbles. The harlequins I have are hybrids - they are dark blue with a gold head. They are stunning (well I think so) and hard to get hold of. I think I have 10 (hard to count!) I did have 15/16 but at least 5 of those were elderly and some have passed on and I've lost count now.

I have 4 female palmeri tetra's and 5 males - there was 5 of each but the males hounded one female to death. They are quite naughty fish and I won't get them again. The boys fight almost daily. My tank is very heavily planted and the females take refuge in the plants when it's kicking off. I have read that this tetra will fight to the death but currently it's just at the tatty fins stage.

As for breeding of both of these fish. The harley's turn upside down when laying eggs and lay them on the underside of the plants, the filter - what ever they can find. I've seen the males coming alongside the females and wrapping their tails around the female as she's turning upside down - I'm presuming that is the fertilization process of this species.

The palmeri tetra females dart in and out of the plants and the dominant male follows her ... they appear to scatter the eggs so the marble trick would work for them.

I've just cleaned out baby fishes tank again and he's doing so well. He's getting hard to catch now as he's so fast! He's also just about big enough now to get a clear photo so here goes

Just read all your thread. How's the mystery baby doing?