Firecracker 4th of July

[Keith Perkins]

Came home to find what I feared, only 20 still attached to the cone and all the rest either in the cone lip or on the tank bottom next to the base of the cone.

[Second Hand Pat]

Damn Keith, sorry to hear. The parents are not picking them up.

[Keith Perkins]

Mom has been trying, but they just aren't sticking to the cone right. Dad's been banished to the other half of the tank with some egg crate for spousal abuse. The cone is right at the edge of the egg crate and he's been standing by...we'll see what happens. With her laying as many eggs as she does and as often as she does I'm not overly concerned. I do wish I knew where this curve ball came from though.

[Keith Perkins]

Surprise of surprises, there are way more wigglers attached to the cone this morning than there were when I went to bed last night. Somehow mom reattached a pile of them overnight. Since the eggs weren't previously adhesive enough, she must have some amazingly sticky spit.

[Bill63SG]

Surprise of surprises, there are way more wigglers attached to the cone this morning than there were when I went to bed last night. Somehow mom reattached a pile of them overnight. Since the eggs weren't previously adhesive enough, she must have some amazingly sticky spit.

Mom spit is an amazing thing.Glues and cleans.

[Keith Perkins]

Well, it's been an odd 24 hours. Early in the day yesterday I discovered most of the fry were free swimming and attached to the sponge filter. I worked and worked with a couple of half full 5 gallon buckets of tank water and got all of them I could back into the tank which I had lowered the water level in to just an inch deeper than the parents are tall. A bit later I thought the parents had eaten them only to find they were all stuffed in the front right corner of the tank. Dad took to beating on mom again so the egg crate went back into the tank, I was hoping that wouldn't be necessary.

This morning I came down to the fishcave to turn on room lights and discovered all the fry gone and none attached to mom. I nearly posted all this before feeding time but I'm glad I didn't. Upon returning with food a bit later I discovered every single fry had moved to the opposite end of the tank and were either in that front corner or attached to dad. Currently they are split pretty evenly between the two parents. Still pretty touch and go in my mind with the remaining fry, but we'll see.

[Second Hand Pat]

Keith, how many are attached?

[Bill63SG]

Ah,the rollercoaster.

[Keith Perkins]

Yes indeed Bill.

There's only a small fraction of what I started with Pat. As Rick predicted, the time on the bottom of the tank took it's toll apparently.

[Second Hand Pat]

Bites ...but at least you still have some.