Small fry

I haven't blogged much about our fish recently (let's be honest, I haven't blogged much about anything recently), but they've been doing fine. I'm being so diligent about doing their water tests once a week, and water changes at the same time, that I hardly recognise myself. If those poor creatures who lived in my cold water aquarium during the mid-eighties could see me, they'd stare in awe at the reformed character who does more than clean the tank once every six months.

Anyway that was then, and this is now, and I'm pleased to say our six cherry barbs have settled in very well and aren't exhibiting any of the shyness that barbs are renowned for. They all huddle at the front of the tank every time anyone walks into the room, expecting to be fed, and beyond that they pretty much look after themselves and don't do anything more remarkable than chase each other about a bit from time to time.

Until last night, when I happened to glance over while we were watching TV, and spotted a small piece of floating debris near the top of the tank. The filter usually does a pretty good job of removing anything like this, so I was surprised to see it, and even more surprised when I noticed it was moving. Against the current. Swimming, even. Scarcely able to believe my eyes I rushed over to the tank for a closer look. A tiny fish! Our barbs have spawned!

The little guy is barely half a centimetre long, but appears to be a strong swimmer. He (or she - we won't be able to tell for a few months) keeps his distance from the adults. A sensible strategy, because they tend to eat their fry when nobody's looking. He's done pretty well to survive this long under his own steam, because we've done nothing special to promote breeding in the tank, and not provided any of the recommended feeding material (like "infusoria" - whatever that is) for fry, but the fact that he's grown big enough to be seen free swimming without a black background means he must already be a few weeks old.

Which also means he's somehow managed to survive a filter change. I'll have to be even more careful from now on. We've called him Kevin. Well, you know, "Stephen" was a bit too obvious.