During the evening of Thursday, September 17th, two days after I spotted the first new fry, I discovered two more. In fact, I actually watched as one of them came zipping out of its mother's mouth and dove into the rocks for protection.

During the next day or two, I was still able to see both of them, as they carefully hovered within the rock decor. However since that time, only one
of them has remained in sight on a regular basis, being as it has taken up residence in a small nook between two rocks near the front center of the
tank. As far as the other one is concerned, I have no idea what its fate may have been. Both of them seemed quite healthy, spunky and fully free-swimming when I first discovered them.

Concerning the very first fry that I discovered on September 15th, I believe that it is probably a lost cause. For the brief second or two that I saw it,
it did not appear to be swimming properly. Perhaps it was under-developed because it was released prematurely. Who knows.

At any rate, out of the three fry that I have seen from this third spawn, it appears that we have at least one healthy survivor. Hopefully, like Junior,
it will have the smarts to avoid hungry mouths until it reaches a safe size.

Speaking of Junior, he/she continues to do well. The evidence is mounting
that "he" may be a "she". The way that it swims freely about, even near and right in front of the four males, without being seriously harassed, adds to
my belief that it is not another male. This speculation is also supported by the fact that its colors continue to be quite pale -- compared to the four males -- and its belly is quite light -- almost white -- with no dark bar whatsoever on the ventral side. It has now been three months and a week
since Junior was released by mama.

I've also conducted a few partial water changes since my last log entry, as well as the usual top-offs and algae removal from the glass panes.

Just yesterday I used my turkey baster to remove all of the thick algae from the rocks, so that a new fresh crop can grow on them. I am not going to feed the mbunas for a few days so that they will be hungry enough to eat some of
the removed algae that is now laying on top of the sand substrate.

That's it for now.


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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