L-10a red lizard fry

[toddnbecka]

Here's the first pics of the tiny new red lizard whiptail fry. I was really beginning to wonder if the eggs would EVER hatch, even though they weren't fungused. Apparently dear old daddy red stayed with them, doing something that looked like pushups to keep water moving through the pvc tube, while they absorbed their yolk sacs. I looked into the tube just last night and noticed he was alone in there. At first I couldn't see any fry, but I gradually realized the wee buggers were all over the tank. Most were/are on the glass and plants, a couple on the sand and sponge filter. Trying to get pics of something that small with an autofocus point-sand-shoot camera isn't easy. Most of the attempted closeup shots focused on something further back than the front glass, but I managed to get a couple.

Two on the back glass, note their size realtive to the airline tubing behind the tank:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/toddnbecka/P1030609.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/toddnbecka/P1030617.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/toddnbecka/P1030615.jpg

Three (one out of focus) hanging on the Najas, left side:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/toddnbecka/P1030620.jpg

Look very closely in the center of the pic:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/toddnbecka/P1030600.jpg

[emartin]

NICE PICS!

How about some pics of the parents?

[Heyguy74]

Nice pics. What are the water parameters for that tank? Just wondering if breeding them is much different from ABN plecos.

[F8LBITE]

congrats Todd.

[toddnbecka]

Parents look something like this, except the breeding male is red. I can't get a pic of him, he's inside a pvc tube.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/toddnbecka/P1030647.jpg

Belly shot of a gravid female:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/toddnbecka/P1030522.jpg

PVC breeding tubes (they prefer bamboo, but I can't find any):
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/toddnbecka/P1030649.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/toddnbecka/P1030648.jpg

The breeders are housed in a 38 along with dozens of BN juvies growing out, some cherry shrimp, and ramshorn snails. I use coral in all my tanks to buffer the water chemistry. Fry seem to be doing well on microworms and spirulina flake.

[daniel4832]

Nice setup Todd!!!
Thanks,
Daniel

[toddnbecka]

The 2nd and 3rd spawns were smaller, and disappeared within a few days. I turned the breeding tube rack around so that the male didn't see anyone walking past the tank, thinking maybe he was getting too much disturbance. It seems to have worked. The 4th spawn was another large one halfway around the inside of the tube, likely more than one female contributing. After 8 days the tube with the eggs and the fanning male were moved onto the 10 gallon.
Immediately before moving them I rounded up the fry from the first spawn and moved them into the 38 with the breeding group for further growout (and to make rooom for the new fry.) Total from the first spawn was 37 fry, .75-1" long. The 4th spawn looks to be a little larger.
Those eggs hatched a week ago, and the tube/male were returned to the 38. The following week (last Saturday) he had another small clutch of eggs in the tube, and probably within a couple days the small clutch became another large one. Those eggs are now brown w/eyeballs visible, and will be hatching sometime early next week, so they'll be moved into the 10 tonight after I siphon the tank. The question now is how many fry can the 10 gallon tank support? I moved 80 ~2" BN juvies out of the 38 about a week before the L-10a fry were moved in, and several hundred ramshorn snails were thinned out as well.
Here are some more recent pics of the fry.
The first 37 in the transfer container, about 10 weeks old:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/toddnbecka/P1030893.jpg

Closer view:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/toddnbecka/P1030897.jpg

Dropped in a coin for size comparison:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/toddnbecka/P1030898.jpg

I found this precocious little bugger in the 38, yolk sac already gone, when I moved the larger ones down. Apparently at least one egg hatched significantly earlier than the rest:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/toddnbecka/P1040002.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/toddnbecka/P1040003.jpg

Older pics, 2nd (small) clutch of eggs that disappeared:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/toddnbecka/P1030717.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/toddnbecka/P1030718.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/toddnbecka/P1030719.jpg

[engine312]

Are those eggs in the second tube on the left? If they are, there good size. Nice pictures. Thanks for sharing.

[twisted fisher]

most great

let me know when you have fry available im looking for some lizzies