"Cap'n, thar be fish in here!"

Until recently, I have had absolutely no luckwith aquariums. Fish were always dying off or disappearing, never to beseen again (I was secretly wishing they had packed their little aquasuitcases and headed to clearer waters, rather than the more obviousexplanation of their demise). I had a small 10-gallon tank, and hadinadvertently kept it overstocked (which explained much of the mysteryof the sick/disappearing fish). So several weeks ago I upgraded to a30-gallon in a last-ditch attempt to give my little finned friends abetter chance.

Well, not only are they now thriving, but they are breeding! About 3weeks ago one of my sunburst (or is it sunset?) platys gave birth to abrood. Unfortunately most of the little ones fell prey to the adults,but I did manage to save four of them, set up a floating baby saver,and they have been doing quite well in that. And now my other femaleplaty is due to give birth soon, so I've been checking daily for anysigns of new ones in the tank. I only have one baby saver, so the planis to capture any new babies and put them in with the other fourexisting young. (Ideally I need another baby saver to put the adultpregnant female in, but haven't been able to get to the pet store tobuy one...for some reason none of the smaller pet stores in the areacarry them.)

So this morning I was checking the aquarium...but the female hasn't hadthe babies yet. But as I was looking, I thought I saw something tinydart across the bottom of the tank. At first I thought it was a bit ofdebris that was being pulled toward the filter, but to my surprise...itwas a baby catfish! I couldn't believe it; I've never actually hadcatfish breed before. So I checked more closely and soon found thatthere is not one, but two of them, happily feeding away at the bottomof the tank. At first I was going to try and net them to put in thebaby saver, but noticed that the adult fish don't seem to bother withthem at all, so I left them to go about their business. And right afterdiscovering them, I found another baby platy hidden in one of theplastic plants...apparently he managed to survive all this time amongstthe adult platys (and my voracious gourami). Now, he did seem to stillbe at risk of being eaten, so I managed to capture him and place him inthe safety of the baby saver with his brothers.

I don't have any pics of the babies...they're too small to photographwell...but here's a couple of pics of some of the fishies in mytank...I have an albino pleco, two common ones (Monty, the big guy withthe smile on his face in the bottom pic, is around 11 incheslong now), a gold gourami, two cory cats, and three platys....and now,babies too! (oops...forgot to mention that I have some tetras too)

I had some of my platys breed without me knowingas well. I had to move my tank a few months ago because mymom's house was being tented for termites. When I got to thelast of the water I was taking out, I found some babies. Ididn't really want more fish, so I just figured that maybe the adultswould eat them. I also have some cories, but two differentkinds, so they couldn't breed, but congratulations!

I also think one of my black neons might be pregnant (but I'm prettysure they lay eggs, so whatever you'd call full of eggs) either that orsomething is wrong with it. Here's a picture, you can see howswollen the one is in comparison to the other in thebackground. That one is smaller since I haven't had it aslong, but the proportions should still be the same.

Here's a head-on view.

Congrats on the babies! It's so funwatching them grow. I had both sexes of guppies in a 5 gallontank once. I wasn't expecting babies to actually survive, butthey did and I had to put the girls in a separate tank so I wouldn'thave babies popping out constantly. I was beingoverrun!:shock:

My cories layed eggs in my 10 gallon a couple times, as did my zebradanios, but the danios always ate all the eggs in one day.

Missyscove, when my egglayers have bred (like danios and cories) I onlynoticed very slight bellies on them just before the eggs werelayed. I'd be guessing that your neon is sick.

That's what I thought, but I don't know what with, and there isn't really anything I can do for it.

Thanks Naturestee! I've had baby platys before,but this is the first time I've ever had baby cats...it was quite theunexpected surprise! And today I finally got to go out to the largerpet store and purchased another baby saver, so hopefully will be ableto protect more of the platys when mom #2 gives birth.

Missyscove, your tetra does look bloated. I've never had tetras breed,but from what Naturestee said, your fish could be sick. All sorts ofthings can cause bloat in fish (I experienced it more than once when Ifirst owned fish, and in my case it was due to overstocking the tank,and too many toxins building up in the water.) Maybe you could googleinfo on bloat in tetras and see if you find anything that might helpyou with it?

Wow...that's so great! I used to havean aquarium as well, the same size you have now. I've hadmostly Mollies and some Platy's...but also had a rather large,beautiful, flowy (I think it's called butterfly), whitegoldfish. He was truly beautiful, and HUGE!! Namedhim Bubbles.

I've never had catfish breed, either...they must be simplyadorable! I love watching baby fish...they're so cute andtiny!

I have a friend, who's dad has a tank of rare cichlids (sp?) fromAfrica that are only found in ONE body of water there. Theybreed all the time, and you can always find several litters (is thatthe right term?) of babies in there at any given time. I justlove watching them dart around and having a good ol' time (of course,while hiding from the bigger guys!). So cute!

I've never had breeding fish before, but it must be fun to see your new little babies!

Your fish are beautiful, too...love Monty!! Wonderful! Congratulations on your new babies!

Seeing pictures of your aquarium makes me wantanother one, its weird to think that owning fish can be fun.I had all sorts of communtiy fish, mollies, red-tail sharks, tetras,glass catfish and a dojo that hid in the rocks all the time.But no new animals until we make that 3,000 mile move across country!:X

Congatulations Bassetluv! You have some beautiful fish

Update: I now have (at last official count)26(!!!) baby platys...as well as the two baby cats (who are growinglike weeds...they are half as big as their parents already). I went outand bought another babysaver recently, and put one of the pregnant momplatys in it - guessing at when she'd have them...she looked pretty'ripe' when I did...and the next day discovered she'd had them. So nowthere's six in the first baby saver - one almost ready to set free inthe aquarium, five with a bit more growing to do - and 20 in the newbabysaver. Once they have all matured...assuming they make it...I'll begiving them away to a local fish store here.

Only minor snag...I've discovered that my aquarium is leaking! It's aslow leak - water accumulates under the tank - but will need to befixed at some point. I had purchased it at a yard sale for $15 a whileback. Other than that though, fishies seem to be thriving pretty well.

P.S. Thanks Michaela!

Here's a pic I just took of one of the baby cats (he's at the front...you can see his dad off to the right):

Aww look at them Plecos, I swear they are my favorits.

My hubby and I owned a 18 inch pleco for a year until we sold all ofour fish tanks. I loved him. We named him brutis, we had the 18 inchand 5 smaller ones, and one was 12 inch.