A Diamond Is A Piece Of Coal That Stuck With The Job

So this morning was pretty exciting for us. We got up (not the exciting part) and we were reading and talking (still not the exciting part) when Jacob looked at the fish tank (now for the excitement).

Last night when we went to bed this is what Cher looked like (Sonny is in the background). The dark spots on her belly are the babies inside her, more specifically their eyes. Poor girl, her belly used to be as flat as Sonny’s.

When I got up this morning and turned on the fish light, I didn’t really look at the breeding tank (I got used to the disappointment of there not being babies in the tank) but I thought there was “too much food at the bottom of the tank, perhaps she wasn’t hungry last night.” So, when Jacob told me there were some babies in the tank it made sense to me, I wasn’t seeing food at the bottom, it was babies! when we first looked there were 18 babies in there. We set up the video camera (video coming soon of some fry birthing), and made breakfast.

After at least six and a half hours of delivery she pushed out 71 fry (baby fish). One died right away and three were not fully formed, so there were 67 moving around. I put Cher in the big tank again and she was happy. After two hours of the fry being alone in the floating tank, there are 51 still in there. The other 16 must have been small enough to swim out the side slits and decided to become lunch for some bigger fish (aka mom and dad).

About a week and a half ago I put Cher in the birthing tank thinking she was ready to pop. This was her first school of fry, so I was not sure when she got pregnant; they gestate for about 4 weeks. This was based on her size and I was thinking she had about 35-45 babies in her. My last fish that had 34 babies was the size Cher was a week or two ago. Now that I know she had twice as many in her I realize that she just was bigger because she had so many more fry to house. She did a good job and is swimming around happy and free. I expect that in about 4-5 weeks we will see more fry in the tank.

It is amazing that Cher had that much room in her body to store 71 babies for so long. Think that over Ronda, Camara, Fiona, Brittany, Theresa, Karen, Mindy (and anyone else who might read this who has multiples. Aren’t we glad we are not fish? I know I am.

Side note: Mallory helped me pick out fish and she named Sonny and Cher, Skyler named the snail Cat and the algae eater Dog, so I only thought it right that Gavyn get to name the boy fry his choice after seeing pictures of them, Yellows. I told Ronda to ask Gretchyn and Geneva what they think would be a good name for the girl fry, it appears Gretchyn didn’t have and opinion, and Geneva said Hammer. So there you have it, we have some little Yellowses and Hammers in our tank. When they are big enough to see which ones are boys and which are girls I will let you know the numbers.

Just so you know, Cat has been trying to climb into the fry tank, so they have a lid to keep them safe.

If anyone else out there has little ones (I know Mallory you are not a little one) that want to name my pets, you have four weeks or so to work on submitting names for the next batch of fry.