Baby Zippers?

[RMau]

Here is a picture of the surprise that we found in one of our tanks yesterday.



There are two of these young fish that we found and by process of elimination we think they are Zipper Loaches. That is, if the fish we think are Zipper Loaches in that tank really are. That's what they were sold to us as over 12 months ago. The only pairs (or more) of fish in the tank are the trio of Zippers, a pair of Plecos and two different kinds of Tetras.

We were changing the gravel in this tank. The original gravel was a large pebble (maybe 3/8 inch or so) and we never did like it a lot. After we pulled out all the plants and rocks and started scooping the gravel, we spotted the two youngsters. We managed to scoop them up and move them to a small tank we have running for cases like this (well, not exactly like this, we keep finding swordtail fry in the filters from another tank) and the two of them seem to be doing fine in there.

Gotta love this aquarium thing and the surprises that it springs on you!

Rick

[Graeme Robson]

Certainly looks like juvenile Zippers

Congratulations are in order!

[Emma Turner]

Congratulations, Rick! This is great news. Keep the pics coming (would love to see pics of the adults as well as the babies). I know you have a measuring tape on the pic, but it is difficult to tell the actual size because the fry is situated further back. What is your estimate of their current total length? Also I'm sure everybody here would like to know tank conditions (at least pH, hardness, temp) and details of the actual set up.

Emma

[Jim Powers]

COOL!!

[Martin Thoene]

Sweeeet! Unmistakably a zipper.

Martin.

[RMau]

Here is a picture of one of the adult Zippers. Maybe Mom?



In this picture you can see parts of all three of the adult Zippers in the tank, along with a 'Red-tailed Loach' who is a solo in the tank. This is the tank after we did the gravel change yesterday.



The tank is a 36 gallon bow front. Filtration is a TetraTec HOB. Temperature is 77.5 F (the wonders of digital thermometers!). We change 20% to 25% of the water every week. Never more than two weeks between changes. The water is straight out of the tap. The only treatment is Tetra Aqua Safe. (Emma, I'd like to give you more data, but I don't know any of the other parameters. Sorry.)

The filter has four Tetra cartridges and we change two at each water change. The tank has been set up for about two years and the Zippers were early inhabitants.

All in all, nothing fancy. I think this event is much more a testament to the wonders of Mother Nature and her creatures than it is to our set-up.

Rick

[mikev]

Fantastic! Congradulations!

(Is this the first documented case around here?)

[Graeme Robson]

(Is this the first documented case around here?)

Most certainly is!

[Mad Duff]

Congratulations Rick

[mickthefish]

great news rick, babies are poping up pretty regular now on this site.

congrats
mick

[Emma Turner]

Thanks Rick. Do you happen to know whether the tap water in your area is soft or hard?

Emma

[RMau]

We live in West Central Florida and all of the water is from the limestone aquifers. I suspect that our tap water is slightly hard. I'm going to try to get in touch iwth the local water authorities to see if they can tell me their targets for water parameters delivered to their customers. No guarantee that those are what is coming out of our faucets, but it's a start.

A couple of other points. We feed all the tanks a very varied diet. There are 'one food' animals in nature, but they are not commom. Most critters eat different things, so we feed lots of differnt foods. Cucumbers, live & frozen brine, frozen bloodworms, mysis and daphnia. A few different flake foods, etc.

Recently we found a source for live tubifex worms and were getting them every couple of weeks. In fact, the tank were we found these baby Zippers appeared to have a live colony of tubifex living in the spaces between the over-sized gravel. They were everywhere when we were scooping the old gravel out of the tank.

Saw one baby this AM. Still looking frequently to see if we can get more pictures.

Rick

[Martin Thoene]

Rick, you can possibly look up your local water-authority on the web and find their water parameters. Most water utilities tend to have these available these days.

Would it be possible for us to include reference to your breeding success on the LOL site in the Zipper species profile and use your pictures? If so, would you have larger sized files available?

Great stuff! Martin.

[helen nightingale]

congrats Rick!

[Emma Turner]

Any ideas of approximate total length of these chaps, Rick? It's hard to tell from that first photo. I'm thinking they could be a couple of months old already.

mickthefish has been very successful at breeding a similar species - Acanthocobitis zolternans. I wonder if there is much similarity in water parameters etc?

Emma