It has been a while since I have had time for updates! Everything is moving along quite well. The fry of Agnes & Frank are just about ready to go, and we had a bumper crop, as far as I'm concerned. There got to be too many (100+) for the breeding tank so I set up my 37-gallon and put the majority of them in there via soda bottle trap, which worked well, or too well. I was busy doing other things and every 10 minutes or so the trap would have a good number of babies in it, so I'd move them over ("hey, this is easy!") and did not realize that I had moved over almost all of the babies to the 37-gallon, which was not my intent. I wanted to split them up somewhat, so there would be adequate space for them to grow in each tank. I had 6 left in with Ma & Pa, it turns out, and I honestly wanted to leave at least 25. The tank is so heavily planted, though, and it was hard to see all of the babies at any one time, so I did not realize how many I'd moved. I then was worried that if I put some of them back in the breeding tank that the adults would reject them, so I decided to go with what I had, though I think it would have been fine. After they were moved, the parent fish would literally stare over at the fry tank (next to the breeding tank) through the glass, apparently pining for their babies. It seems far-fetched, but I am not making it up.

I lost one of the babies in the tank with the adults, as it somehow jumped out and I found it on the floor, but otherwise the remaining 5 are robust and healthy, with excellent finnage. They seem to be larger than the largest ones in the fry tank, which I am sure is due to the overcrowded status of the 37-gallon. In that tank there is a wide disparity between the smallest and the biggest fry, so I will sell off the bigger ones and gradually make more room so the smaller ones can catch up. Next time, assuming there is a next time, I will divide the fry more evenly between the two tanks. Agnes & Frank do extremely well with their babies and even now that the fry are juvies they are tolerated and not harassed in any way by the parent fish. It is a remarkable pair! Just about all of the fry are silvers, with markings similar to wilds (I am very happy about this, though I know these days the more elaborate morphs are much more popular) and there are about 10% solid golds. I have interest from several LFS in these fry, as well as several individuals, so I don't think I'll have difficulty selling them. It will be hard to part with all of them! There are a couple of them that have caught my eye as having particularly nice fins and markings, even down to the slightly reddish tinge in the dorsal - again resembling wild scalares.