• 2nd Spawn - One Dead Fry So Far

    From Jeff Snyder@1:345/3777 to All on Mon Jul 27 18:53:00 2009
    This morning, at about 6:45 AM, when I turned on the aquarium lights, I discovered the dead body of a newly-released fry in the back right corner of
    my female's 20-gallon holding tank. I used the turkey baster to stir the
    water slightly in order to make certain that it was in fact dead, and not
    just resting on the sand substrate. After that, I used the baster to push
    the fry closer to the front of the tank so that I could examine it more closely.

    Going by its physical appearance, I believe that it was probably released by the female within a few hours at best of my discovering it. It still looked quite fresh with no signs of decay or fungus growing on it yet. Neither was there any evidence that she had tried to eat it, as the whole body was
    intact, with two well-defined eyes, and a tail section fully extended from
    the yellowish egg sac.

    Naturally, I find this development troubling; even more so because it was precisely on day #17 in June that she began to release her first batch of
    fry. In that instance, the following day, I discovered five live fry, as
    well as three dead ones; and within a matter of about half an hour, two more fry had died, leaving me with three live fry. Of those eight fry, Junior is
    the lone survivor, and is now exactly 40 days old.

    Considering that today also marks day #17 for her second spawn, I am
    concerned that tomorrow may possibly bring more bad news, even though I have been hopeful that this batch will turn out better than the first one in
    June.

    I am still not certain why seven of the original spawn died. I have hypothesized the following:

    1. She had tried to eat them, but then spit them out.

    2. The water was too cold, even though the holding tank sits right next to
    the main tank.

    3. The metal content of the water was too high due to the metal hook on the suction cup that was used to keep the air hose in place beginning to rust slightly.

    4. Insufficient filtration.

    With the death of this first fry from the second spawn, I am considering
    other possibilities:

    1. Maybe she is releasing them prematurely before their gills are fully developed.

    2. Considering her small size, maybe she is holding too many fry in her
    mouth. Perhaps they aren't being rotated enough, or are crowded, and are
    dying in her mouth. Then, as they die, she simply spits out the dead ones.

    Considering that with this second spawn, she is in a much larger,
    established tank with more than adequate filtration, I have come to believe that some of my original theories are without merit. For example, Junior is
    in an identical tank with identical lighting and filtration, sitting right
    next to her tank. He is doing quite well, so I don't think that the water temperature has anything to do with it. There are no metal objects in the holding tank, so that also rules out that as being the possible cause of
    death of the fry that I found this morning.

    As with the first batch, I believe that tomorrow -- day #18 -- will probably tell the full tale regarding how many of the fry are still alive. It is now going on 5 PM here, and she hasn't spit out any additional fry since this morning -- just the one dead one. And actually, I am not even certain that
    she spit it out because it was dead. It could have died after she released
    it. I only found its dead body.

    Well, here's to hoping for the best tomorrow.

    Jeff Snyder, SysOp - Armageddon BBS Visit us at endtimeprophecy.org port 23 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your Download Center 4 Mac BBS Software & Christian Files. We Use Hermes II


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