Wonderful surprise!

[Emma Turner]

Having carried out quite a bit of maintenance on the River Tank earlier today, and rather disheartened that for the 2nd time in a row there were no more Sewellia fry to be found in the filter, I'm over the moon to report that I've just seen a young Sewellia fry in the main tank itself! I had just been photographing one of the adults who was posing on a cobble at the front of the tank, when something caught my eye on a leaf from one of the large Anubias clumps! I'd guess that the young Sewellia was about 1.5cm TL, which is the same size as the lone fry I rescued from the 2nd batch. It didn't hang around for long and I haven't been able to spot it since, but it's in there somewhere.

Emma

[Jim Powers]

Great news!! Where there is one, there are probably more.

[Mad Duff]

Congratulations Emma, sounds like removing the danio's has done the trick

[Emma Turner]

Congratulations Emma, sounds like removing the danio's has done the trick

Yes, to a degree I think it has. There are still two adult Schistura balteata in there which are looking rather well-fed though:



Emma

[Graeme Robson]

Excellent!! This all sounds promising.

[Martin Thoene]

Those baltis need relocating. I bet they're worse predators than the Danios were.

Yesterday, I watched a baby cheni litterally swim right across the nose of an adult. The adult never even budged. I would suspect that Sewellia will leave babies alone too.

Martin.

[Emma Turner]

I haven't managed to negotiate another tank yet , otherwise I would have moved the balteatas by now. I've had them so long and love them to pieces so I just couldn't get rid of them.

I have been wondering about something else though. I forgot to mention at the time of finding that lone fry from the 2nd batch in the filter, I found a dead female Sewellia lineolata in the tank. No obvious signs of what might have happened, and everything else was fine and has been fine since. I have to wonder whether I lost my main breeding female as she was quite a nice size and there haven't been any large broods in the filter since then. Most of my other females are quite a bit smaller so I'm unsure as to whether they are sexually mature yet.

Emma

[mikev]

Sorry to hear this

There is another possibility: as I recall, your spawns occurred during the heat waves. Maybe this is the required component (cf. recent posts from Germany).

[Emma Turner]

Earlier on this evening I managed to capture a few pics of the aforementioned little Sewellia lineolata that has been lucky enough to avoid the attentions of the Schistura balteata in the main River Tank. He/she was out and about grazing on an Anubias leaf at the front left hand side of the tank. Pics aren't brilliant, but show he/she is doing great :









Emma

[helen nightingale]

congratulations Emma.

Good luck with the tank negotiations. maybe if you go on about it for long enough, Steve will end up saying "yes dear" so as you shut up?

[Graeme Robson]

Superb! Great to see the little chap doing so well.