Thought I'd share this story as I found it interesting.

I'll preface this story with the fact that I have kept fish for almost 30 years now and have kept native species for close to 20 years. Despite this experience, I wouldn't be in the same class with most of you when it comes to keeping fish, particularly when husbandry skills have been involved. I have kept a variety of animals over the years, but have never been inclined to attempt reproduction on any except a very few. And, though I tend to be a purist (I don't like keeping aquatic plants from Africa in with South American species), at times when space has been limited, I've been known to keep some of the craziest species together. Now, to the story...

In my two oldest daughter's room, I keep a 55 gallon with a 3 foot Lepidosiren. The tank has a secure top with two standard florescent lights and a Marineland Emperor 400 for filtration. The tank is bare except about 1.5 inches of small river stone gravel. There is no heater on the tank. My oldest daughter likes the Lepidosiren just fine, but my middle daughter kept asking if we could add some "cool fish" to the tank (i.e. something with color that swims).

So, about 6 months ago, while I was out doing research on a local salamander, I happened across a dark water creek that was full of Pteronotropis hypselopterus. Being both colorful and swimmers, I thought that these guys would make a good addition to the tank. I have kept them before and found that they required nothing special on my end, yet thrived for years. I netted about 2 dozen and brought them home and added them to the tank. Within a few days, they settled down and started feeding on flake food and holding their colors again. I had a variety of sizes, ranging from 0.75 inches upward of full sized breeding males. They grew nicely and over the next few months, I lost only two; one that developed a fungal disease and another that appeared to have stopped eating and settled to the bottom where the Lepidosiren did him in. Here's a shot of a couple of them hanging out near the gravel bottom:



A few months ago, I had to make some room and ended up adding a couple brackish water Fundulus and a couple of pair of Adinia xenica to the tank, along with some species of brackish water goby that I never bothered to ID. So, this was the menagerie for the next couple of months, with no apparent problems.

Then comes hurricane Fay that dropped about 2 foot of rain on the Tallahassee area, which caused part of our house to flood and kept us without electricity for several days. My two daughter's room flooded and we had to remove everything except the fish tank, which I left until I knew when the carpet people would be able to get here to tear it out. Turns out, it took them almost 10 days, since everyone was backed up with work orders. For ten days the tank sat without lights or filtration and the fish were all fine and looking unstressed.

Finally the morning came that the carpet guys would be here, so I went into the room and started siphoning off the tank water, so that I could move it out of the room. The house had other repair issues from the storm damage, so I was busy and got sidetracked. When I remembered the tank, I came into the room to find that the water level had dropped to the top of the gravel. Whoops. And then a knock on the door. I had no choice but to push the tank, as it was, into the bathroom and wait until the carpet guys were finished. This took about 3 hours.

As soon as they were finished, I drug the tank back into the room and surveyed the damage. Ironically, the killifish were all gone (eaten by the Lepidosiren) and I had only lost about 6 of the Pteronotropis. The goby was still hanging in there just fine also. As I began to fill the tank, I walked to the kitchen to retrieve my water treater only to find out I was out of it (had loaned it to a friend who never returned it). I was in a jam with time and going to get some more was not an option I had. I immediately shut off the water (tank just under half filled) and watched. I don't think I need to describe what happened next and suffice it to say that I had lost all the fish, except the Lepidosiren within about 15 minutes. Bummed, I pushed the tank back against the wall and started to set my daughters' room back together. Then off to take care of other duties.

Things have been hectic since the hurricane hit and the tank, complete with lonely Lepidosiren, a few snails, half-filled with water, and no filtration has been sitting there since. About 4 days ago, my middle daughter was asking where I had gotten the little baby fish from. I told her that I didn't have any baby fish, to which she responded "Then what are these?". I looked into the tank to find about 3 dozen, 0.25 inch long Pteronotropis hypselopterus swimming around near the top of the half-filled tank! Seems the eggs or fry(?) survived through all those fish in the tank, as well as the chloramine, and lack of filtration. I'm not sure exactly what they have been feeding on, but they all have full bellies without me having given them any food. Weird that the adults bred with all these tank mates and nowhere to hide or attach eggs.

I guess I'll grow these guys up and give them the same general neglect as I did the adults and see if they start a second generation in a few years.

Later, KW

Edited by KPW, 26 September 2008 - 08:00 PM.

Interesting. Aren't most of these types of fish egg scatterers??

Cool story Kenny and to think if you had all those adults in there you probably never would have known you had breeding taking palce as the babies would have been eaten. Those are the fish that make me want to set up a S. US fish tank and lose some of my Ohio focus.

Couldn't you have temporarily kept the fish in the bathtub?

Andy

p.s. glad you made it through the hurricane relatively unscathed.

Edited by andyavram, 27 September 2008 - 03:23 PM.

Canadiancray: Yeah, I think most are, although it surprised me that 1) they would scatter in 24 inches of open water without any cover around and 2) that any eggs/fry survived giving all that was going on (i.e. all the predators, the draining of the tank, the chloramine in the replacement water, etc.).

Andy: The tub has a very large, non-fish friendly occupant at this moment. Pteronotropis are pretty cool, but most of the SE fish are!

Later, KW

Its amazing what eggs will survive. I had a tank full of Zebra Danios that had an outbreak of Hydra & I removed the fish & bleached the tank. After sitting for 1 day with bleach & then being refilled with clean water the eggs hatched. No idea they were even in there.