Loaches Online Forum

I was delighted last weekend to find large numbers of tiny fry in my tank. I have read Eric Bodrock's article on this web site and I think they are loach fry. This is my first ever fish tank - set up last November. I have one loach (sold to me as a butterfly plec), one oranda and one black moor.
If I have understood correctly, I would need to have two loaches to spawn, so what is happening. I do not know what sex the oranda / moor are, but I think the loach is male ( having looked at photos on EB's article).
When I set up the tank I bought all the kit new in a pet shop including gravel, driftwood, filter etc. The only live thing from the pet shop, other than the fish was the plants, but if the eggs were on the plants would it have taken around 3 months for them to hatch?
The fry - which were not apparent in the tank until the weekend are now about 5mm long. I have taken them out into a different tank so that they are not eaten.
Can a moor breed with an oranda and would the fry look the same as those in EB's photos?
Can anyone tell me what is going on?!

are the fry swimming in the lower levels of the tank? LL
if so then they are goldfish fry.
and yes cos basically they are all the same species so you could have any goldfish in your tank and as long as you have male and female they will spawn.
btw how big are the fry?
mick

They have been in the low levels of the tank they have been removed to, but I've just looked again (early evening, artificial room light only) and they are mostly near surface hanging vertically or on glass. When first noticed in original tank they were clinging to the glass in the top third of the tank or quite high up in one corner of the tank ( the most sheltered corner away from the current created by the filter). If I disturbed the gravel or plants I saw lots more.

I first saw the fry on Sunday - now on Thursday most are around 5mm.

What do you think?

goldfish LL
once they become free-swimming they should swim in the upper levels of your tank.
you will need minute food for them at first but they very quickly graduate to larger foods.
there a product called liqifry for egglayers which at a pinch will give them their starter food.
i use a tot glass fill it with tank water, squeeze 3-4 drop of the food in stir it let it settle then only feed the cloudy water not the residue at the bottom of the glass.

hope this helps
mick

Put lots of live plants in the tank, too. Microscopic things live among the leaves and fry can eat these things between meals.